HAUNTS 

ANCIEN 
PEACE 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 


HAUNTS 
OF    ANCIENT    PEACE 


BY  THE  AUTHOR   OF 

"  THE  GARDEN  THAT  I  LOVE,"  "  IN  VERONICA'S  GARDEN  " 
AND  "LAMIA'S  WINTER-QUARTERS" 


'  And  one,  an  English  home  .  .  . 
A  Haunt  of  Ancient  Peace." 

The  Palace  of  Art. 


Nefa  fforfc 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON :  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  LTD. 
1902 

AU  rights  rettrved 


COPYRIGHT,  1902, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  October,  1902. 


NortoooH  press 

3.  8.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  tc  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


TO 

VERONICA  AND   THE   POET 

IN  GRATEFUL  ACKNOWLEDGMENT  OF  THEIR  CONSTANT 
AND   AGREEABLE  COMPANIONSHIP 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

I 

"How  I  wish,"  said  Lamia,  "we  could  set 
off  on  a  driving  expedition  through  England, 
this  lovely,  windless  Autumn  weather  !  " 

"What!"  I  exclaimed,  "and  leave  the  Gar- 
den that  we  Love,  when  now  it  is  in  its  con- 
summate beauty  ? " 

"  Its  consummate  beauty  !  "  replied  Lamia. 
"  Ever  since  I  first  heard  of  it,  it  has  been  in 
its  consummate  beauty.  If  you  only  knew 
how  weary  I  am  of  it !  Gushing  enthusiasts 
and  habitual  adulators,  from  near  and  from 
afar;  young  women  with  their  middle-aged 
men,  bicycles,  and  cameras ;  old  women  with 
their  lap-dogs  and  their  superlatives ;  gentle- 
men from  France ;  ladies  from  Germany ;  citi- 
zens from  Chicago  and  Utah,  the  last  followed 
by  their  dowdy  seraglio  of  exasperatingly 
homely  wives  —  " 


2  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

"In  the  interest  of  accuracy,"  I  ventured 
to  interrupt,  "and  of  the  moral  austerity 
of  the  voters  of  New  York  and  the  Eastern 
Seaboard,  let  me  assure  you  that  polygamy 
has  for  many  years  been  abolished  in 
Utah." 

"  I  wonder  how  that  was  managed,"  she 
answered.  "  I  suppose  by  a  Divorce  Bill  on 
a  generous  scale,  with,  I  trust,  handsome  com- 
pensation,"—  here  Lamia  looked  round,  to 
make  sure,  I  rather  suspect,  that  neither 
Veronica  nor  the  Poet  was  overhearing  her, — 
"  for  domestic  disturbance  and  the  victims  of 
the  latest  craze.  But,  at  any  rate,  prosperous 
citizens  from  somewhere,  with  their  signed, 
sealed,  and  yet  undelivered  wives,  for  I  am 
sure  polygamy,  or  something  uncommonly  like 
it,  must  still  subsist  somewhere,  or  there  could 
not  be  such  a  preponderance  of  females  per- 
petually dragging  you  round  your  well-beloved 
and  much-advertised  Garden,  and  simpering 
attendance  on  your  air  of  self-complacency, 
with  a  modest  look  of  as  much  as  to  say, 
'  Alone  I  did  it.'  " 

"Are  you  really  serious,"   I  inquired,  anx- 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  3 

ious  to  divert  her  humour,  "  in  saying  you 
want  to  wander  at  this  season  and  — " 

"  Perfectly  serious.  I  never  was  more  seri- 
ous in  my  life ;  highly  serious,  though  I  never 
knew  any  one  who  really  had  *  high  serious- 
ness,' —  always  excepting  the  Poet,  —  though 
I  know  several  persons  who  have  low  serious- 
ness, that  most  wearisome  thing  conceivable." 

"  What,  then,  is  your  ideal  of  proper  seri- 
ousness ?  " 

"  Can  you  doubt  it  ?  "  she  rejoined.  "  Why, 
serious  levity,  of  course,  or,  if  you  prefer  to 
put  it  differently,  light  seriousness.  I  pray 
you  cultivate  it.  I  almost  think  you  try  to 
do  so,  but  as  yet  with  imperfect  success,  in 
some  of  the  pages  dedicated  to  the  numerous 
volumes  descriptive  of  this  same  Garden." 

I  could  see  she  was  beginning  to  relent, 
since  I  had  bowed  my  head  so  meekly  to  her 
breeze  of  banter,  and  that  she  wished  to  pour 
spermaceti  into  my  inward  bruise,  if  she  had 
made  one,  for  she  went  on : 

"  Your  Garden  books,  of  course,  are  inimi- 
table, especially  the  verses  of  the  Poet  that  you 
cite  so  copiously,  and  that  you  are  not  re- 


4  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

sponsible  for,  and  the  urns  and  other  house- 
hold virtues  of  Veronica,  which  you  belaud 
with  such  touchingly  fraternal  admiration." 

"  Not  to  forget,"  I  suggested,  "  Lamia's 
sprightly  observations." 

"  Oh,  I  too  am  inimitable,  am  I  ? "  she 
observed.  "  And  yet  I  think  I  could  imitate 
myself  if  I  tried.  All  imitation  is  exaggera- 
tion, though  I  am  well  aware  that  it  would  be 
difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  exaggerate  my 
wit,  my  originality,  in  a  word,  my  inexhaustible 
list  of  gifts  and  graces,  of  which  I  should 
think  people  are  as  tired  as  I  am,  for  the 
present,  of  your  adorable  Garden.  Do  you 
not  think  we  might  leave  it  to  the  contempla- 
tion of  its  own  beauty  ?  I  am  told  that  some 
women,  and  all  poets,  pass  the  greater  part  of 
theif  time  in  contemplating  the  beauty  of  their 
own  compositions.  May  not  gardens  conceiv- 
ably like  to  do  the  same  ?  I  own  that  yours 
is  at  present  irritatingly  perfect,  and  that  is 
why,  being  so  attached  to  it,  I  long  to  leave  it. 
How  does  Veronica's  favourite  sonnet  go  ? 

«« Here  on  the  summit  of  Love's  topmost  peak, 
Kiss  we  and  part." 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  5 

"  Veronica's  favourite  sonnet ! "  I  exclaimed. 
"  How  can  you  say  so  ?  It  sounds  much  too 
—  well,  you  know  what  I  mean, — for  that, 
whoever  wrote  it." 

"In  that  case,  I  don't  mind  confessing  that 
I  did." 

At  this  point  Veronica  and  the  Poet  came 
across  the  lawn  to  where  we  were  sitting ; 
and  I  thought  it  was  high  time  they  did 
so. 

"What  has  Lamia  been  saying?"  asked 
Veronica.  "  Rebelling,  I  suppose,  against 
everything  in  general." 

"  Yes,"  I  answered,  "  and  against  the  Gar- 
den that  we  Love  in  particular." 

"  Quite  right,  too,"  chimed  in  Veronica. 
"  I  am  equally  impatient  for  the  first  nipping 
frost  to  blight  all  its  posies,  when  we  shall  be 
permitted  to  go  indoors  and  devote  a  little 
time,  by  way  of  a  change,  to  adoration  of  some 
venerable  chairs,  with  at  present  only  three 
legs,  that  I  have  lately  purchased." 

"  And  Lamia  wants  to  start  at  once,"  I 
added,  "  from  your  perfectly  appointed  house 
and  chairs  —  " 


6  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  More  perfection  !  "  murmured  Lamia  under 
her  breath. 

"  To  the  Land's  End,  in  this  what,  in  her 
habitually  romantic  language,  she  described  as 
—  how  did  you  describe  it  ?  " 

"This  lovely,  windless,  silvery-hazy  season." 

"Then,"  said  Veronica,  with  amiable  deci- 
siveness, "it  shall  be  done." 

When  Veronica  says  a  thing  shall  be  done, 
done  it  is,  but  after  due  foresight  and  prepara- 
tion. It  turned  out,  however,  that  something 
of  the  kind,  though  of  more  modest  propor- 
tions than  Lamia's  wish,  had  been  mellowing  in 
her  own  mind ;  and  so  we  were  informed  that, 
if  it  suited  us,  we  were  to  be  ready  to  start  the 
following  morning.  As  soon  as  this  was  an- 
nounced I  noticed  that  Lamia,  instead  of  ded- 
icating herself  to  those  mysteries  of  female 
packing,  which,  as  she  once  obsen-ed,  can 
never  be  fathomed  by  the  shallow  male  intel- 
lect, passed  a  goodly  portion  of  the  day  in 
wandering  with  affectionate  attention  about  the 
Garden,  of  which  she  had  declared  herself 
utterly  weary.  I  had  too  much  discretion  to 
observe  this  aloud,  but  roamed  with  her  in- 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  7 

stead,  as  long  as  she  would  allow  me,  over 
lawns,  among  flowers,  and  through  shrub- 
beries, that  never  seem  so  attractive  as  when 
made  additionally  bewitching  by  her  presence. 
The  praise  of  consummate  beauty,  at  which 
she  had  scoffed,  I  suppose  without  serious- 
ness either  high  or  low,  seemed  absolutely 
appropriate  on  this  last  day  of  August.  For 
the  first  time  —  yes,  for  the  first  time,  what- 
ever I  may  have  said  before,  —  there  are  no 
failures,  though  I  doubt  not  there  are  still 
some  mistakes,  in  the  Garden  that  I  Love. 
The  Poet,  perhaps  assisted  occasionally  by 
my  older  judgment,  has  so  completely  mas- 
tered the  craft  of  making  a  garden  such  as 
all  four  of  us  wish  to  have,  a  still  ignorant 
garden,  if  you  will,  not  a  horticultural  hospital 
nor  a  floricultural  museum,  but  a  simple  and 
sincere  work  of  art,  and  an  abode  of  beauty, 
that  the  summer  would  have  to  be  a  perverse 
one  indeed  that  reduced  it,  as  I  have  observed 
in  so  many  gardens,  to  the  condition  of  a  desic- 
cated blister.  The  child  is  father  of  the  man, 
materially  as  well  as  spiritually,  and  the  physical 
vigour  of  manhood  and  general  robustness  of 


8  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

later  life  depend  in  no  small  measure  on  a  wise 
yet  generous  diet  in  early  years.  So  the  ability 
of  a  garden  to  hold  out  against  the  possibly 
excessive  rains  of  June,  and  the  seemingly  end- 
less droughts  of  July  and  August,  depends 
mainly  on  the  judicious  manner  in  which  it  is 
treated  in  May.  On  more  than  one  occasion 
the  Garden  that  I  Love  has  been  exposed  to 
the  trials  just  indicated,  without  suffering  eclipse. 
But  this  year  the  sun  and  the  clouds  have  be- 
haved, for  it  at  least,  with  unwonted  considera- 
tion ;  and  the  consequence  is  that,  as  Lamia 
tauntingly  observed,  I  traverse  it  with  an  air  of, 
I  daresay,  provoking  self-complacency.  How 
can  I  help  it  ?  The  enmity  of  the  weather  is 
resented  by  gardeners  as  much  as  by  farmers, 
while  its  co-operation  is  accepted  by  them  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  only  a  just  recognition 
of  their  own  superior  craftsmanship.  The  tea- 
roses,  that  everybody  has  now  discovered  to  be 
so  hardy  and  self-reliant,  both  against  the  house 
and  in  their  specially  allotted  beds,  decorated 
June  with  unprecedentedly  lavish  and  vigorous 
bloom ;  and  now,  in  their  later  efflorescence, 
they  are  less  astonishing  in  size,  it  is  true,  but 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  9 

more  numerous  and  richer-hued  than  ever.  I 
can  assign  the  palm  to  none,  there  are  so  many 
that  deserve  it,  and  they  have  not  yet  assumed 
the  pathetic  look  they  gradually  put  on  when 
the  penumbra  of  winter  slowly  advances  over 
landscape  and  lawn,  and  casts  shadows  of  sad 
anticipation  over  their  once  all-unclouded  faces. 
Let  me  not,  however,  dwell  overmuch  on  them, 
or  yet  on  the  China  roses,  with  their  delicate 
hues  and  ephemerally  half-opened  buds,  for 
their  variety  of  flower  and  foliage  is  now  as  strik- 
ing as  is  their  lofty  stature.  It  is  everywhere 
noted  that  the  maidens  of  this  generation  are 
not  only  what  I  doubt  not  maidens  always  for 
the  most  part  were,  divinely  fair,  but  likewise 
most  divinely  tall,  partaking  of  the  gifts  of 
Juno  Virginalis  no  less  than  of  Aphrodite ; 
and  the  flowers  of  to-day,  when  grown  with 
due  skill,  seem  to  be  endowed  with  the  same 
towering  distinction.  The  lilies,  whether  of 
the  speciosum,  the  auratum,  or  the  tigrinum  type, 
are  prodigious  in  stature,  and  so  are  the  hybrid 
gladioli,  and  more  plebeian  but  prolifically 
branching  zinnias  and  Aster  sinensis.  What 
is  the  height  of  the  Cape  hyacinths  and  the 


io  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Japanese  anemones,  I  hardly  like  to  say,  lest  I 
should  be  supposed  not  to  have  escaped  one 
of  the  marked  foibles  of  to-day,  habitual  and 
emphatic  exaggeration.  But  whether  I  am 
credited  or  not,  we  have  golden  rod,  six,  dahlias, 
beliantbus,  and  the  tall  rudbeckla,  ten,  and  sun- 
flowers twelve,  feet  high.  The  hollyhocks  look 
over  the  heads  of  this  floral  crowd,  and  some 
of  them  —  why,  I  know  not,  and  cannot  make 
out  —  show  no  signs  of  that  exasperating  dis- 
ease in  their  leaves  that  has  of  late  years  marred 
the  beauty  of  so  many  of  them  everywhere.  I 
confess  tallness  seems  to  me  to  add  a  crowning 
grace  to  the  more  stately  denizens  of  the 
garden,  though  possibly  gardeners  who  take 
pains  to  encourage  floral  growth  and  abundance 
would  have  a  tale  to  tell  of  stakes  and  staking, 
of  which  the  craft  consists  in  concealing  both. 
There  are  two  oval  beds,  apart  from  and  not 
within  sight  of  each  other,  of  which  both  the 
Poet  and  myself,  and  indeed  more  critical  Ver- 
onica as  well,  are  particularly  enamoured,  and 
which,  this  first  year  of  their  existence,  are 
more  or  less  experimental.  They  were  beau- 
tiful on  May-day,  when  we  returned  from 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  n 

Lamia's  Winter-Quarters ;  they  were  beauti- 
ful through  June  and  July ;  they  are  beauti- 
ful still ;  each  successive  kind  of  shrub  and 
plant  and  flower  which  they  contain  having 
been  equally  successful,  as  though  one  and 
all  of  them  had  been  inspired  with  generous 
emulation.  They  were  made  afresh  last  No- 
vember, deeply  and  repeatedly  dug  over  before 
anything  was  put  into  them,  and  well-chopped 
turf  and  rich  loam  entered  largely  into  their 
composition.  I  will  not  describe  them,  even 
could  I  do  so ;  but  I  think  they  alone  were 
worthy  of  those  polygamous  visits,  of  which 
Lamia  spoke,  any  day  during  the  last  four 
months.  Everywhere  throughout  the  garden, 
either  obvious  or  more  or  less  concealed,  are 
mignonette  and  heliotrope ;  and  on  walls, 
whether  facing  north,  south,  west,  or  east, 
there  is  homely,  old-fashioned  jessamine,  like 
the  note  of  Wordsworth's  stock-dove,  "  slow 
to  begin  but  never  ending,"  so  that  an  all- 
pervading  perfume  seems  the  soul  and  vital 
spirit  of  the  place. 

And  now  I   have  done,  here  at  least,  with 
the  Garden  that  I  am  touched  to  think  so  many 


12  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

persons  love,  and  with  what  Lamia  calls  my 
self-complacency  ;  for  it  will  be  found,  by  those 
who  care  to  go  on  with  it,  that  this  discursive 
volume  has  little  or  nothing  to  do,  save  inci- 
dentally, with  that  now  somewhat  threadbare 
theme. 

The  following  morning  ushered  in  Septem- 
ber in  the  most  auspicious  manner.  I  awoke 
about  half-past  five  and  looked  out.  In  the 
very  height  and  heat  of  summer  an  absolutely 
cloudless  sky  is  neither  the  most  agreeable 
nor  the  most  becoming  of  weather  conditions. 
Summer  clouds,  not  charged  with  threat  of 
storm,  or  rain,  or  wind,  not  dense  and  gloomy, 
but  here  and  there  dappling  the  sky  and  tem- 
pering the  burning  rays  of  the  sun,  are  an  in- 
dispensable accompaniment  of  perfect  summer 
beauty  and  summer  enjoyment;  and  that  is 
why,  in  June,  July,  and  August,  people  prefer 
the  latitude  and  climate  of  these  Islands  to 
those  of  the  seductive  land  where  Lamia,  with 
the  rest  of  us  as  her  devoted  attendants,  lately 
had  her  abode.  But  when  outdoor  well- 
established  peaches  redden  on  old  brick  walls  ; 
when  hollyhocks  and  tiger-lilies  are  in  full 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  13 

beauty  ;  when  roses  begin,  not  to  wane,  but  to 
take  on  them  a  more  pensive  look,  to  be  less 
demonstrative,  more  reserved,  more  fastidious, 
so  to  speak,  more  unostentatious  and  dignified  ; 
when  the  whole  garden  has  a  less  vainglorious 
air,  as  of  one  who  no  longer  struggles  to  do 
himself  justice  now  that  he  has  succeeded,  and 
ample  justice  has  been  done  him  by  others ; 
when  pears  and  plums  and  other  mellow  juicy 
fruits  are  as  plentiful  as  blackberries ;  when 
the  rooks  return  from  their  day's  excursion  to 
the  marsh  with  a  slower,  longer-drawn  caw,  and 
take  more  time  in  settling  down  to  their  nests 
in  the  great,  tall,  motionless  trees ;  when  stub- 
ble alternates  with  drying  sheaves,  early  corn- 
stacks,  or  rocking,  murmuring  wheat-fields 
awaiting  the  reaper,  and  in  places  hop-poles 
are  already  down,  while  in  gardens  of  the  later 
sorts,  women  and  children  are  busy  among  the 
rows  and  the  big  brown  baskets ;  when  wood- 
bine and  bramble  are  the  chief  flowers  for  the 
hedgerows  maiden's-bower  has  not  entirely  mo- 
nopolised, and  blue  succory,  lavender-coloured 
scabious,  and  golden  hawkweed  tend  to  oust 
other  blooms  from  the  hedge-bottoms ;  when 


i4  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

days  wax  shorter  and  twilight  comes  on  less 
furtively  and  hesitatingly ;  then  the  utter  ab- 
sence of  cloud  seems  to  lengthen  out  the 
summer  and  stave  off  the  slowly  approaching 
gravity  of  Autumn. 

It  was  a  morning  that  seemed  to  promise 
such  a  day,  when  I  looked  out  with  the  hope 
of  finding  signs  favourable  to  our  intended 
driving  tour ;  for  the  Autumnal  season  of  the 
year,  like  that  of  human  beings,  is  less  capri- 
cious and  more  to  be  counted  on  than  April 
winsomeness  or  midsummer's  too  often  stormy 
impulses.  The  sun  was  just  on  the  point  of 
rising  into  a  sky  that  everywhere  was  cloud- 
less, and  copious  dew  glistened  on  lawn  and 
leaf.  A  covey  of  partridges,  "  little  victims 
unconscious  of  their  doom,"  personally  con- 
ducted by  their  parents,  were  marching  with 
graceful  confidence  from  flower-bed  to  flower- 
bed, for  a  few  moments  lost  to  sight,  and  then 
one  by  one  emerging  again  into  the  glimmering 
grass.  Suddenly  there  was  a  whirr  of  wings, 
and  away  they  floated  over  the  orchard  boun- 
dary into  the  meadows  beyond,  in  search  of 
safe,  convenient  cover.  But  they  were  at  once 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  15 

replaced  by  something  yet  more  graceful,  some- 
thing that  fastened  and  fascinated  my  gaze  still 
more.  It  was  Lamia,  who,  at  this  early  hour, 
and  little  suspecting  her  sunrise  saunter  was 
witnessed  by  admiring  eyes,  was  taking  leave 
of  the  Garden  for  a  time  in  a  farewell  visit. 
She  was  bare-headed,  and,  if  the  whole  truth 
must  be  told,  bare-footed  as  well.  She  wore  a 
light-coloured  garment  I  had  never  before  seen, 
and,  therefore,  as  a  male  ignoramus  in  such 
matters,  am  quite  incapable  of  describing ; 
and  her  abundant  tresses  fell  over  it  in  waves 
unconfined. 

....  Her  brow  was  bare, 
And  rippled  from  her  radiant  hair 
The  glow  and  glory  of  the  dawn. 

Slowly  and  deliberately  she  walked  from 
flower-bed  to  flower-bed,  now  halting  to  stoop 
towards  some  favourite  rose,  now  burying  and 
bedewing  her  face  in  the  fragrant  bells  of  the 
datura  or  the  still  wide-open  blooms  of  the 
sweet-scented  tobacco-plants.  It  was  a  loving 
pilgrimage  she  was  making  round  the  Garden, 
that,  on  the  day  before,  she  had  told  me  she 
was  heartily  weary  of,  but  which  I  suspect  she 


1 6  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

loves  more  truly  and  tenderly  than  any  of  us. 
When  it  came  to  a  close,  she  stood  for 
a  moment  in  the  middle  of  the  lawn,  kissed 
her  hand  in  each  direction,  walked  back 
gravely  into  the  house,  and  vanished.  Was 
there  ever  in  the  world  another  being  so 
loving,  so  lovable  ? 

I  shall  not  set  down  here  any  information 
about  the  arrangements  that  were  made  for  our 
excursion,  since  I  doubt  if  any  one  would  care 
to  imitate  them ;  and,  if  you  have  not  unquali- 
fied confidence  in  the  foresight  and  executive 
talents  of  Veronica,  much  that  I  have  written 
has  been  written  in  vain,  and  I  have  failed  to 
give  you  a  just  conception  of  her  exceptionally 
helpful  gifts.  Moreover,  the  conveyances,  the 
animals,  the  baggage,  the  packing,  the  hun- 
dred-and-one  things  that  are  indispensable  to  a 
successful  driving  tour,  can  be  assumed,  and, 
notwithstanding  their  importance,  are  the  least 
part  of  the  true  elements  of  vagrant  enchant- 
ment. The  companions  and  their  conversation, 
their  frame  of  mind  and  capacity  for  enjoyment, 
are  the  chief  matter,  after  all ;  and  Lamia,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  Poet,  are  not  to  be  had  for 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  17 

the  asking,  nor  yet  for  the  paying  for.  There 
are,  I  am  aware,  many  poets ;  at  least  so  I  am 
told.  But  there  is  only  one  Lamia ;  and  of 
her  we  have  a  monopoly,  thanks  to  her 
touching  fidelity  to  the  Poet,  to  my,  I  am 
well  aware,  servile  adoration  of  her,  and  to 
Veronica's  indulgent  toleration. 

"Are  you  never  a  little  jealous  of  her?" 
asked  a  tactless  person,  the  other  day,  of 
Veronica. 

I  know  no  one  who  can  so  well  rebuke  with 
perfect  courtesy  an  ill-advised  observation ;  so 
the  prompt  reply  was : 

"Jealous  of  Lamia?  The  Poet  is  perfectly 
devoted  to  her,  and  she  to  him ;  and  so,  I 
have  no  manner  of  doubt,  she  is  of  the  greatest 
possible  service  to  him,  as,  I  trust,  I  too  am  in 
my  own  perhaps  humbler  but  equally  disinter- 
ested way.  And,  if  ever  I  think  you  also 
could  make  him  happier,  assist  his  imagination, 
stimulate  his  mind,  and  set  his  voice  singing, 
you  may  be  quite  sure  I  should  ask  you  to 
pay  us  a  much  longer  visit  than  I  fear  will  be 
possible  to-day,  for  they  are  both  waiting  for 
me  to  go  out  driving  with  them." 


1 8  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Could  anything  have  been  more  courteously 
caustic  ? 

Neither  do  I  propose  to  give  any  indication 
of  our  itinerary,  or  yet  of  the  names  of  places 
where  we  made  our  various  halts,  had  our 
various  conversations,  visited  Haunts  of  An- 
cient Peace,  and  sojourned,  when  we  would, 
for  so  many  days.  But  those  who  know  Eng- 
land well  will,  I  imagine,  be  able  to  give  a 
fairly  good  guess  as  to  the  local  habitation  and 
the  name  of  them  all,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  most 
of  them ;  and,  even  if  sometimes  they  are 
out  in  their  reckoning,  what  does  it  matter? 
"  Think  it  so,  and  so  it  is  ; "  and,  just  as  a 
rose  by  any  other  name  would  smell  as  sweet, 
so  a  slowly  mouldering  ruin,  a  village  "  the 
world  forgetting,  by  the  world  forgot,"  a  humble, 
pious  parsonage,  a  semi-feudal  Castle,  do  not 
lose  their  charm  or  their  dignity,  because  the 
material  imagination  calls  them  by  a  wrong 
appellation.  Is  it  not  enough  to  say,  "  What 
a  heavenly  spot,  what  a  divine  place !  How 
copiously  the  Poet  talked  to-day  after  their  in- 
the-open-air  mid-day  meal !  Verily  Lamia  sur- 
passed herself  yesterday  in  sportive  levity,  in 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  19 

mirthful  melancholy,  in  electric  sympathy,  in 
illuminating  paradox  !  "  If  sometimes  you  feel 
like  that  concerning  what  I  have  to  tell,  and  I 
shall  offer  you  only  what  seems  to  me  the 
cream,  such  as  it  is,  of  all  that  happened  to  us, 
the  obscure  narrator  will  be  well  content. 

"  I  trust  it  is  thoroughly  understood,"  said 
Lamia,  when  we  were  a  few  miles  from  home, 
"  since  the  following  ten  days,  fortnight,  or 
three  weeks,  whichever  it  may  be,  are  to  be 
dedicated,  in  a  sacrificial  spirit,  entirely  to  my 
delectation,  and  no  other  member  of  the  party 
will  have  any  enjoyment  save  the  exhilarating 
sense  of  benevolent  altruism,  that  I  shall  be 
taken  nowhere,  see  nothing,  and  converse  with 
nobody,  that  is  not  ancient.  I  wish  to  see  Old 
England,  or  so  much  of  it  as  is  left." 

"  Yet,"  I  ventured  to  plead,  for  this  partic- 
ular conversation  was  between  Lamia  and  me 
only,  "  is  there  not  much  in  it  that  is  more  or 
less  new,  well  worth  seeing,  and  strongly  ap- 
pealing to  the  intelligent  mind  ?  " 

"  That  may  or  may  not  be.  Not  being  my- 
self intelligent,  but  radically,  or  should  I  not 
rather  say  conservatively,  stupid,  I  cannot  say. 


20  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

But  there  is  one  thing  I  do  know,  which  is 
known  but  to  few,  especially  to  few  women,  I 
know  what  I  want ;  and  I  do  not  want  paper- 
mills  with  the  newest  machinery  for  turning  the 
pages  of  yesterday's  immortal  works  into  fresh 
paper  on  which  to  print  the  equally  enduring 
works  of  to-morrow.  I  can  equally  dispense 
with  tubular  bridges,  whatever  they  may  hap- 
pen to  be,  the  latest  thing  in  motor-cars,  model 
farms,  and  elementary  schools  conducted  on  an 
entirely  novel  system,  in  which  everything  is 
taught  except  the  elements  of  sound  morals 
and  good  manners,  and  the  rudiments  of  uni- 
versal knowledge  are  instilled,  which  resolutely 
refuse  to  take  root  in  the  mind  of  the  bucolic 
British  boy.  May  I  hope,  too,  that  now  Peace 
has  happily  been  restored  throughout  His 
Majesty's  dominions,  we  may  see  no  news- 
papers older  than  Addison's  Spectator?  " 

We  had  got  down  to  gather  a  hedge  posy, 
and  at  this  point  of  the  conversation  Veronica 
and  the  Poet,  who  had  been  similarly  em- 
ployed not  far  off,  joined  us  ;  when  Lamia,  not 
changing  the  theme,  but  somewhat  altering  its 
tone,  continued : 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  21 

"  I  confess  I  crave  for  the  urbanity  of  the 
Past,  for  feminine  serviceableness,  for  washing- 
days,  home-made  jams,  lavender  bags,  recitation 
of  Gray's  Elegy,  and  morning  and  evening 
prayers.  One  is  offered,  in  place  of  them, 
ungraceful  hurry  and  worry,  perpetual  post- 
man's knocks,  an  intermittent  shower  of  tele- 
grams, reply  not  paid,  dithyrambic  vulgarity 
or  life-not-worth-living  lamentations,  and  indi- 
vidual infallibility  accompanied  by  universal 
incredulity.  Look  round  at  this  rustic  old- 
world  scene.  Work  is  going  on  everywhere, 
but  how  quietly,  how  undemonstratively ! 
Tell  me,  Veronica,  we  shall  stay  nowhere  ex- 
cept at  old  Inns,  shall  we,  or  with  old  people, 
and  give  utterance  to  none  but  the  very  oldest 
and  most  out-of-fashion  ideas." 

The  country,  the  villages,  the  parks,  the 
hamlets,  through  which  we  passed,  when  we 
resumed  our  progress,  fully  answered  to 
Lamia's  description,  and  must  surely  have 
satisfied  her  desire.  We  seemed  to  have  got 
beyond  the  range  of  corrugated  iron  farm- 
sheds  and  barbed  wire.  There  were  generous 
breadths  of  grass  on  either  side,  between  the 


22  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

roadway  and  the  hedges.  The  latter  were 
allowed  to  have  some  little  will  and  way  of 
their  own,  the  cottages  stood  well  back  from 
highway  or  lane,  looked  solid,  sturdy,  and 
weather-tight,  though  of  vague  antiquity ;  and 
the  folk  inside  them,  though  I  daresay  thrifty 
enough,  had  spared  time  to  cultivate  unremu- 
nerative  flowers,  and  money  enough  to  invest  in 
white  paint  and  muslin  curtains,  so  as  to  give 
to  their  windows,  above  and  below,  a  look  of 
comeliness  and  care.  Here  and  there,  children 
yet  too  young  to  attend  those  elementary 
schools  on  which  Lamia  had  been  so  severe, 
were  munching  apples  as  rosy  as  their  own 
cheeks,  or  harmlessly  phasing  geese  that  were 
growing  more  unwieldy  and  waddled  still  more 
ungracefully  as  the  year  moved  nearer  to 
Michaelmas  Day,  and  betook  themselves  with 
much  cackling  from  their  infantine  tormentors 
to  the  nearest  pond.  The  pillage  Chjirckes 
bore  to  the  carelessly  passing  eye  a  strong 
family  likeness,  though  the  architectural  virtuoso 
could  discern  at  a  glance  certain  differences  in 
window,  buttress,  or  porch,  that  left  to  each 
one  its  own  sufficiently  defined  individuality 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  23 

and  story.  To  any  village  Vicar  or  Rector  we 
met  going  his  pastoral  rounds,  we  made  due 
obeisance,  which  was  returned  with  Christian 
courtesy ;  and,  if  we  drew  up  for  a  moment 
for  local  information  or  guidance,  we  invariably 
went  forward  knowing  something  more  than 
heretofore. 

One  cannot  well  drive  about  England  with  I 
one's  eyes  open,  without  observing  indication 
after  indication  of  the  strong,  independent 
individuality  of  the  English  character,  which 
may  yet  prove  our  best  safeguard  against  that 
exotic  "  Collectivism "  of  which  we  hear  so 
much.  The  very  landscape,  its  shapeless  fields, 
its  irregular  hedgerows,  its  winding  and  way- 
ward roads,  its  accidental  copses,  its  arbitrari- 
ness of  form  and  feature,  are  a  silent  but  living 
protest  against  uniformity  and  preconceived  or 
mechanical  views  of  life.  Who  divided  these 
fields  ?  Who  marked  out  these  roads  ?  No 
one  did.  They  divided  and  marked  out  them- 
selves just  as  strong  characters  divide  and 
sever  themselves  from  others,  settle  their  own 
boundaries,  and  define  irregularly  their  own 
place  and  position.  A  square  field  you  will  ! 


24  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

no  more  find  in  an  English  landscape  than  a 
round  one.  They  are  all  informal,  swerving 
and  sweeping  in  and  out  in  a  manner  un- 
accountable, which  endows  each  of  them  with 
life  and  a  kind  of  personality.  The  very 
lanes  meander  and  zigzag  so,  you  might 
almost  think  their  course  had  been  decided 
by  the  steps  of  some  of  our  deeply  drinking 
Saxon  ancestors,  whose  legs  were  more  or  less 
unsteady  as  they  wended  homeward  after  a 
day's  thatching  or  threshing.  That  this  irregu- 
larity of  the  landscape,  so  delightful  to  look 
on,  is  accompanied  by  a  good  deal  of  waste, 
from  the  economist's  point  of  view,  may  be 
true  enough.  We  are  a  thriftless  people.  But 
is  not  our  unthriftiness  part  of  our  masculinity, 
part  of  the  negligent  bigness  in  the  national 
character,  which  feels  it  can  afford  to  be  heed- 
less of  trifles  and  details,  and  in  any  case  will 
;i  no  account  be  reduced  to  slavish  formality  ? 
ike  the  Poet,  England  was  born,  not  made, 
and  has  grown  in  its  own  lavish,  wide-spread- 
ing fashion. 

That  everything  in  English  country  life  is  a 
growth,  not  a  mechanism,  may  be  seen  again 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  25 

in  the  diversity  of  aspect  worn  by  its  various 
counties.  An  accurate  observer  of  Nature 
ought  to  be  able  to  tell,  within  a  day  or  two, 
without  any  calendar  to  help  him,  what  day  of 
the  year  it  is ;  and  he  will  equally  be  able  to 
surmise  what  county  of  England  he  is  in  with- 
out the  aid  of  map  or  guide-book.  Why 
should  Sussex  be  utterly  unlike  Kent  ?  I  will 
answer  the  question,  when  any  one  tells  me 
why  one  Englishman  is  unlike  any  other 
Englishman.  We  are  hewn,  not  sawn,  and  no 
Consular  Dictator  with  a  Code  has  decreed  that 
we  shall  be  this,  or  do  that,  or  that  our  dear 
old  haphazard  land  shall  be  divided  into  de- 
partments. How  many  classes  are  there  in 
England  ?  I  do  not  know.  Attempt  to  de- 
fine them,  and  you  will  soon  find  yourself 
in  a  difficulty.  I  almost  think  there  are  as 
many  classes  as  men,  and  certainly  there  are  as 
many  classes  as  counties.  Passing  from  Kent 
to  Sussex  is  like  passing  from  one  society  to 
another.  Kent  is  softer,  —  I  do  not  mean  in 
climate,  but  in  aspect,  —  more  refined,  more 
careful  of  itself,  a  little  more  self-conscious ; 
in  a  word,  more  civilised.  Sussex  once  had  its 


26  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT  PEACE 

iron-works,  as  its  hammer-ponds  to  this  day 
testify ;  but  these  have  disappeared,  and  Sussex 
seems  well  pleased  to  have  got  rid  of  them. 
There  is  a  rooted  rusticity  in  Sussex  folk, 
which  would  ill  accord  with  manufacture  of 
any  sort.  I  was  pleased  to  find  they  all 
"  touched  their  hats,"  —  as,  may  I  be  allowed 
to  say,  why  should  they  not  ?  They  never 
heard  of  Goethe's  three  reverences :  reverence 
for  what  is  above  one,  reverence  for  what  is 
below  one,  and  reverence  for  oneself.  But 
generations  ago  they  silently  reached  the  same 
conclusion,  and  have  not  yet  abandoned  it. 

r* 

I  know  there  are  parts  of  England  where 
"  touching  the  hat "  would  now  be  regarded 
as  a  trait  of  servility.  In  the  name  of  the 
sweet  charities  of  life,  why  ?  I  imagine  every 
well-mannered  Member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons takes  his  hat  off  to  the  Speaker  when  he 
meets  him,  and  calls  him  "  Sir."  It  is  painful 
to  me  to  pass  a  fellow-creature  in  a  country 
lane  or,  for  that  matter,  on  a  high  road,  and  pass 
and  be  passed  by  him  as  though  neither  had 
any  existence  for  the  other.  If  proudly  ignor- 
ing each  other  be  a  proof  of  independence, 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  27 

I  prefer  a  little  sweet  servility.  Unhappy  the 
man  who  does  not  serve  somebody  !  Surely 
the  most  beautiful  and  redeeming  title  of  the 
Pope  of  Rome  is  Servus  Servorum  Dei,  the 
Servant  of  the  servants  of  God. 

"  Shall  we  pass,  or  go  near,  Field  Place  ? " 
asked  Lamia.  "  I  fear  not,"  said  Veronica ; 
"  to  do  so  would  take  us  twelve  or  fifteen  miles 
out  of  our  way,  and  that  would  rather  interfere 
with  the  plan  and  promises  made  for  to-day. 
We  will  make  a  pilgrimage  there  some  other 
time ! " 

"  When  I  last  was  there,"  said  the  Poet, 
"  now  a  dozen  or  more  years  back,  I  remem- 
ber thinking  at  the  time  I  had  never  seen  a 
more  complete  example  of  a  haunt  of  eigh- 
teenth-century peace.  There  was  nothing  to 
remind  you  of  the  musical  young  arraigner  of 
gods  and  men.  You  expected  rather  to  meet 
Cowper  pacing  the  red-walled  garden-paths, 
composing  '  The  Task,'  to  see  Mrs.  Unwin 
coming  out  of  the  Georgian  hall  to  bring  him  a 
comforter  if  the  air  was  chill,  or  to  hear  Lady 
Austen  playing  on  the  harpsichord  a  serene 
melody  of  Mozart,  breathing  wise  content  with 


28  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

things  in  general.  The  very  gravel-paths  were 
completely  overgrown  with  moss,  —  purposely, 
I  have  no  doubt ;  for  I  never  saw  a  more 
charming  harmony  in  natural  green  than  that 
of  the  moss  on  the  path,  that  of  the  sward  on 
each  side  of  it,  and  that  of  the  trees  overhang- 
ing both.  The  whole  place  looked  as  though 
Shelley  had  never  existed  ;  nay,  as  though  the 
French  Revolution  had  never  occurred.  Wher- 
ever Shelley  may  have  left  his  mark,  he  has 
left  none  on  his  birthplace.  When  I  had 
first  visited  Horsham,  there  was  no  allusion  to 
him  in  the  several  mural  tablets  to  his  people 
in  the  Parish  Church.  There  is  one  to  the 
grandfather,  Sir  Bysshe,  and  his  wife,  and  on 
it  is  inscribed,  f  Their  eldest  son  erected  this 
tablet/  That  eldest  son  was  Sir  Timothy, 
the  poet's  father,  who  lived  to  be  ninety-one, 
dying  in  1844;  and  *  his  relict  Elizabeth,' 
who  died  two  years  later  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
three,  erected  another  tablet,  f  in  testimony  of 
love  and  respect  for  him  while  living,  and  of 
the  regret  she  feels  for  his  loss.'  Evidently 
they  were  all  pious,  God-fearing  people,  cher- 
ishing the  domestic  graces  and  tendernesses  of 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  29 

life,  and  attaching  deep,  silent  value  to  love 
and  respect.  During  the  twenty-two  years 
that  his  parents  survived  him,  did  they  ever 
talk  of  their  wayward  and,  as  they  must  doubt- 
less have  thought,  erring  son  ?  Most  persons 
who  have  of  late  years  written  about  Shelley, 
have  dwelt  on  his  exiled  life  and  his  touching 
death,  and,  either  explicitly  or  by  implication, 
have  conveyed  the  impression  that  his  people 
were  hard,  narrow-minded  folk,  who  treated 
him  with  shameful  injustice.  But  is  there  not 
some  lack  of  imagination,  and  likewise  of  equity, 
here  ?  It  is  all  very  well  for  those  who  were 
not  Shelley's  father,  mother,  sister,  wife,  nor 
kin  of  his  of  any  kind,  to  rejoice  in  his  beauti- 
ful verse  and  in  the  impulsively  generous  qual- 
ities of  which  he  certainly  was  not  devoid. 
But  can  they  not  understand  that  an  old-fash- 
ioned English  couple  of  gentle  birth  and  dutiful 
traditions,  who  feared  God,  honoured  the  king, 
and  looked  on  marriage  as  something  made 
sacred  by  '  love  and  respect,'  must  have  been 
pained,  beyond  all  Shelley's  powers  of  expres- 
sion, by  the  ever-present  thought  that  a  son  of 
theirs  had  advocated  Atheism,  Republicanism, 


3o  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

and  something  strongly  resembling  Free-Love  ? 
Genius  such  as  Shelley's  is  so  bewitching  that 
it  may  champion  any  doctrine  it  likes,  and  will 
yet  be  forgiven  by  the  world  at  large.  But  the 
mother  who  suckled  him  ?  But  the  father 
whose  name  he  bore,  and  who  had  himself 
inherited  the  name  through  generations  of 
pious,  loyal,  scrupulous  men  and  women  ? 
Thus  it  may  well  be  that,  as  they  walked 
slowly  together  round  that  moss-grown  Sussex 
garden,  or  sat  opposite  each  other  by  the 
family  fireside,  when  winds  were  cold  and  wet 
without,  they  never  mentioned  the  son  that  had 
disappeared  from  them  long  before  the  waters 
of  the  Mediterranean  closed  over  him.  But 
now  you  may  read,  in  Horsham  Church,  and 
hard-by  the  tablets  I  have  named,  another  in- 
scription, which  simply  says  — 

'  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley, 
Born  iv.  August,  1792. 
Died  viii.  July,  1822.' 

The  rest  is  silence,  —  a  judicious  silence.  It 
helps  to  make  of  Horsham  Sanctuary  a  haunt 
of  ancient  peace." 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  31 

As  we  meandered  on  by  highway  or  byway, 
next  to  tardily  ripening  wheat  fields  were  mead- 
ows of  just-cut  summer-smelling  aftermath,  and 
hop-gardens,  half  of  which  were  being  actively 
picked,  while  the  other  half,  that  still  had  tower- 
ing bine  and  pendent  clusters  of  fruit  untouched, 
had  for  neighbours  drying  corn-stooks  waiting 
to  be  carried  away.  Hedges,  sheltering  them 
from  those  supposed  equinoctial  gales  that  have 
an  untimely  trick  of  sometimes  blowing  for 
three  days  in  the  very  middle  of  August,  broke, 
without  hindering  the  view ;  and  tall,  wide- 
spreading  umbrageous  trees,  whose  timber  in 
this  age  of  iron  has  ceased  to  be  profitable, 
were  still  spared  in  this  reverent  England  of 
ours  because  of  their  age  and  beauty.  It  was 
the  holiday  season,  so  dear  to  the  "  bucolic 
British  boy  "  of  whom  Lamia  spoke,  and  who 
offers  so  resisting  a  mind  to  information  offered 
him  through  books,  though  it  is  accessible 
enough  to  instruction  vouchsafed  him  by  animal 
and  vegetable  nature,  by  fields,  trees,  birds,  and 
reptiles.  As  a  convinced  Darwinian  would  say, 
he  takes  a  lively  interest  in  his  ancestors,  with- 
out feeling  much  respect  for  them,  and,  though 


32  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

not  knowing  it,  is  a  curious  student  of  gene- 
alogy. At  present  he  was  released  from  scho- 
lastic teaching  in  order  to  complete  his  education 
out  of  doors,  and  at  the  same  to  add  in  some 
degree  to  the  family  income,  on  which  his 
fathomless  appetite  and  passion  for  rough  places 
cause  him  to  draw  so  heavily.  Those  of  his 
sisters  who  were  old  enough  for  the  purpose 
were  similarly  employed,  though  the  observa- 
tion they  could  steal  from  hop-picking  was 
devoted  to  somewhat  different  objects  from 
those  that  distracted  the  attention  of  their 
brothers ;  for  while  these  were  looking  up  to 
catch  sight  of  a  hawk,  down,  to  discover  the 
self-betraying  traces  of  a  hare,  rabbit,  or  weasel, 
and  round,  on  the  chance  of  espying  a  cock 
pheasant  or  a  squirrel,  the  girls,  without  ceasing 
to  strip  the  lowered  hop-bines,  took  stock  of 
the  bodices,  the  skirts,  the  hair,  the  cuffs,  the 
collars  of  their  elder  female  companions.  Fields 
of  roots,  mangolds,  turnips,  and  swedes  were 
not  wanting  to  rural  completeness  ;  but,  though 
ever  and  anon  a  covey  of  birds  flew  up  from  or 
settled  covertly  down  among  these,  it  was  not 
that  rather  charm-lacking  thing,  a  partridge 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  33 

country,  whose  attractiveness  for  the  good  shot 
is  not  so  keenly  felt  by  the  more  romantic 
rambler.  But  it  was  the  fruit-laden  orchards 
that  conferred  the  most  enchanting  feature  on 
the  scenes  through  which  we  passed,  the  most 
peaceful,  the  most  ancient,  for  nearly  all  of 
them  were  old,  though  still  vigorous  in  bough 
and  branch  and  generous  in  fruit-bearing,  a 
survival  of  the  days  of  cider  brewing  and  home- 
grown everything.  Veronica,  commenting  on 
the  crooked  and  leaning  character  of  many  of 
them,  observed  that  their  early  training  had 
been  imperfect ;  while  Lamia  tentatively  asked 
if  something  had  not  been  gained  for  them, 
and  for  us  as  well,  by  their  having  been  allowed, 
in  supple  childhood,  to  follow  their  own  bent 
and  inclination.  The  fruit  had  not  yet  begun 
to  fall,  or  even  to  fill  the  air  with  the  aroma  of 
their  ripeness,  but  they  had  taken  on  every 
shade  and  gradation  of  colour,  from  apple- 
green  to  mellow  russet,  or  that  blushing  crim- 
son which  Lamia  attributed  to  the  self-conscious 
shame  of  their  progenitor  in  paradise,  on  the 
initiation  of  our  inquisitive  first  mother  into 
naughtiness  ;  since  which  time,  the  Poet  added, 


34  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

perhaps  to  shield  her  from  Veronica's  possible 
reprobation,  boys  have  to  be  taught  the  know- 
ledge of  good  and  evil,  whereas  girls  come  into 
the  world  with  an  instinctive  knowledge  of  it. 
In  the  orchards  nearest  to  the  villages,  the 
very  young  children  who  shared  in  the  general 
emancipation  from  book  learning,  thanks  to 
the  harvest  season,  moved  about  below  the 
trees,  jumping  or  struggling  up  to  the  apples 
they  fondly  imagined  they  might  reach  by 
perseverance. 

It  was  in  an  orchard  a  little  remote  from 
village  or  hamlet  that  we  elected  to  have  the 
luncheon  which  Veronica  had  packed  for  us,  in 
such  a  haunt  of  ancient  peace,  that  we  spread 
rug  and  tablecloth,  took  our  lowly  seats,  and 
helped  ourselves  and  each  other  to  what  we 
wanted. 

"  I  trust,"  said  Veronica,  "  you  will  all  make 
the  most  of  your  present  opportunity,  for,  in 
consequence  of  Lamia's  insistence  on  bed  and 
board  of  hoar  antiquity,  you  will  dine,  or  sup, 
or  not  sup,  but  at  least  sleep,  to-night,  at  an  inn 
of  the  most  primitive  manners  and  customs." 

"  I  am  not  afraid ! "  exclaimed  Lamia, "  though 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  35 

I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  ever  exhibited  any- 
thing either  of  the  austerity  or  of  the  lenten 
appetite  of  the  anchorite ;  nor  have  I  observed 
any  such  weakness  in  the  Poet  in  his  very  fin- 
est frenzy.  But  I  have  the  utmost  confidence 
in  the  capacity  of  any  country  inn  in  this  part 
of  the  Realm  to  produce,  at  very  short  notice, 
hare  soup,  prodigal  apologies  for  the  absence 
of  fish,  a  brace  of  young  partridges  shot  be- 
times this  morning,  or  perhaps  yesterday,  a 
colossal  dish  containing  a  hot  farinaceous  pud- 
ding cooked  in  unwatered  milk,  a  bowl  filled 
to  the  brim  with  bright-coloured  late  cherries 
or  early  plums,  and  cream,  as  they  used  to  say 
when  we  were  still  in  the  French  part  of  the 
Riviera,  at  discretion.  I  can  survey  it  all  with 
the  far-seeing  vision.  But  I  trust,  Veronica,  we 
shall  not  be  defrauded,  out  of  excessive  defer- 
ence to  my  old  English  tastes,  of  our  five- 
o'clock  tea." 

"That,  you  will  have  in  an  old  English 
Rectory." 

"  I  trust,  old  English,  will  not,  in  this  case, 
be  a  figure  of  speech,  and  that  we  shall  not  be 
treated,  thanks  to  one  of  those  ecclesiastical  in- 


36  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

novations  which  some  persons  regard  as  agree- 
able evidence  of  the  march  of  intellect,  to  a 
Prayer  Meeting  either  before  or  after  it,  fol- 
lowed by  a  collection  for  the  conversion  of  the 
Heathen  whom  we  are  so  anxious  to  clothe 
with  cheap  shirtings,  flamboyant  umbrellas,  and 
decorous  beads." 

"  We  shall  see,"  said  Veronica. 

"  I  ventured  to  ask,"  pursued  Lamia,  "  be- 
cause, when  one  is  offered  hospitality,  one  never 
can  quite  foresee  what  is  going  to  happen  to 
one.  Being,  as  you  know,  partial  to  al-fresco 
entertainments,  I  the  other  day  rashly  accepted 
an  invitation  to  what  was  luringly  described  as 
a  modest  picnic;  and,  when  I  reached  the  spot 
indicated  in  the  invitation,  I  saw,  somewhat  to 
my  alarm,  a  long  table,  two  rows  of  chairs,  and 
a  white  tablecloth  covered  with  glittering  knives 
and  forks,  napkins  in  fantastic  shapes,  and  a 
mixed  array  of  silver  goblets,  —  I  am  not  sure 
they  were  not  silver-gilt,  —  and  glass  ornaments 
filled  with  orchids,  and  other  hothouse-grown 
flowers ;  and  gentlemen  —  I  believe  gentlemen 
is  their  proper  designation  —  in  white  calves 
and  whitened  heads,  opening  innumerable  ham- 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  37 

pers.  I  looked  furtively  round  to  see  if  there 
was  yet  time  to  retrace  my  steps  and  fly.  But 
at  that  moment  I  was  hailed  with  boisterous 
clamours  of  welcome,  and  I  had  to  go  through 
it  all,  the  newest  courses,  and  the  oldest  jokes, 
over  and  over  again  reiterated,  borrowed  from 
the  Music  Halls  and  the  Theatres,  where  pieces 
run  for  three  hundred  and  one  nights,  and  are 
each  time  greeted  with  inextinguishable  laugh- 
ter." 

"  Poor  Lamia  !  "  said  Veronica  ;  "  we  can 
only  hope  that  the  humbler  meal  will  enable 
you  to  cast  the  veil  of  oblivion  over  those 
horrors." 

"  This  humbler  al-fresco  luncheon,"  added 
the  Poet,  "  recalls  to  me  the  one  we  had  to- 
gether under  the  olive  and  carob  trees,  with 
the  austere  mountains  behind  and  the  smiling 
Mediterranean  in  front  of  us,  and,  all  around, 
sprouting  corn,  burgeoning  fig-trees,  blossom- 
ing almonds,  and  scarlet  wild  anemones." 

"  This  is  just  as  delightful,"  said  Lamia,  "  in 
its  way,  and,  while  there  is  austerity  nowhere,  the 
sun  smiles  through  the  heavily  laden  branches 
of  this  ancient  orchard.  Nothing  so  attractive 


38  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

and  soothing  as  a  smile.  I  must  confess  the 
one  thing  I  have  most  missed  since  we  returned 
from  our  Winter-Quarters  is  the  smile  there 
always  is,  either  abidingly  there,  or  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice  ready  to  break,  on  Italian  faces. 
In  England  peasant  folk  rarely,  and  never 
habitually,  smile.  They  either  look  grave,  or 
they  laugh." 

"  A  true  distinction,"  I  observed,  with  the 
utmost  sincerity,  and  then  took  more  courage 
than  is  customary  with  me,  where  Lamia  is 
concerned,  to  add,  "  a  circumstance  that  I  am 
glad  has  been  recalled,  since  it  enables  me  to 
make  the  gratifying  disclosure  that  Lamia  has 
written  some  stanzas  on  this  very  subject." 

The  look  that  came  over  her  face  at  this 
ebullition  of  boldness,  though  not  a  frown,  was 
certainly  not  a  smile,  until,  after  Veronica  had 
vainly  petitioned  to  hear  them,  the  Poet  came 
to  our  aid,  saying : 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  not  refuse  so  unani- 
mous and  so  respectful  a  request.  I  have 
often,  too  often  perhaps,  had  to  comply  with 
similar  requests  on  your  part,  and  therefore  you 
cannot  and,  I  am  sure,  will  not  refuse  this  one." 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  39 

Whereupon  the  disiato  riso,  the  much-desired 
charm,  stole  over  her  face,  and  she  repeated  the 
following  stanzas  in  her  simplest  manner : 


THE  MAIDEN  OF  THE  SMILE 


IN  that  fair  Land  where  slope  and  plain 

Shine  back  to  sun  and  sky, 
And  olives  shield  the  sprouting  grain 

When  wintry  arrows  fly, 
Where  snow-fed  streams  seek  sun-warmed  vale 

Through  vineyard-scarped  defile, 
The  world  we  enter  with  a  wail 

She  greeted  with  a  smile. 


Slumbering  She  smiled,  and  smiling  woke, 

And,  when  She  felt  the  smart 
Of  grave  sad  life,  smiles  still  bespoke 

Her  tenderness  of  heart. 
And  nightly  when  She  knelt  and  prayed 

Beside  her  snow-white  bed, 
Her  face  was  one  pure  smile  that  made 

A  heaven  about  her  head. 


4o  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

in 

When  Love  first  trembled  in  her  ear 

The  heart-throbs  that  beguile, 
She  listened  with  assenting  tear, 

Then  chased  it  with  a  smile. 
Anguish  and  loss  with  smiles  She  bore 

Unto  her  latest  breath  ; 
But  the  sweetest  smile  She  ever  wore 

Was  the  smile  She  wore  in  death. 

"  I  have  obeyed  without  demur ;  but  I  trust 
no  one  will  think  the  verses  worthy  either  of 
recitation  or  remembrance." 

"In  so  far,"  said  the  Poet,  "as  I  am  any 
judge,  they  have  a  tear  in  them  as  well  as  a 
smile ;  and  by  their  directness  and  simplicity 
at  least  are  much  better  worth  reciting  than 
many  I  have  often  been  asked  to  commend, 
and  was  unable  to  admire  because  of  their  far- 
fetched artificiality." 

"  Were  they  written,  Lamia,"  asked  Ver- 
onica, who  showed  the  most  sympathetic  in- 
terest in  them,  "  with  ease  ?  " 

"  I  fear  they  were,"  was  the  modest  reply, "  or 
they  would  hardly  have  been  written  at  all,  being 
quite  unworthy  of  serious  or  sustained  labour." 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  41 

"  I  think  you  have  uttered,"  said  the  Poet, 
"  only  a  half-truth.  A  rather  unintelligent  per- 
son asked  me,  the  other  day,  if  writing  poetry 
was  not  very  difficult;  and,  at  first  a  little 
embarrassed,  I  answered,  when  I  had  recovered 
self-possession,  that  I  should  think  it  was 
either  very  easy  or  utterly  impossible." 

I  could  see  the  conversation  was  lingering 
too  long  in  the  neighbourhood,  so  to  speak,  of 
Lamia's  verses  to  be  welcome  to  her,  so  she 
tactfully  diverted  its  course  by  saying : 

"  Talking  of  smiles,  did  you  not  notice  that 
the  actors  and  actresses  —  for  such,  we  all 
agreed,  they  manifestly  were  —  who  were  mak- 
ing the  acquaintance  of  the  little  country  town 
through  which  we  passed  an  hour  ago,  and 
where,  as  conspicuous  wall-posters  announced, 
they  are  to  appear  this  evening,  all  wore  a  sort 
of  smile  on  their  faces  ?  That  is  one  of  the 
attractions  of  their  profession." 

"It  needs,"  said  Veronica,  "all  the  attrac- 
tions it  can  muster  in  order  to  counteract  what 
I  should  have  thought  its  disadvantages." 

"  Yet  is  not,"  asked  the  Poet,  "  the  word 
attractive  the  very  one  that  is  applicable  to  it  ? 


42  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

for  we  all  feel  drawn  to  it  in  one  way  or  an- 
other. It  would  be  easy  to  cite  its  drawbacks ; 
but  every  career  has  those.  What  we  must  all 
admire,  I  think,  in  actors  and  actresses  is  their 
kindliness,  their  helpfulness  to  one  another  in 
hours  of  need,  and  their  ready  response  to  any 
appeal  made  to  them  to  assist  in  alleviating  in- 
dividual or  class  suffering.  They  are  a  com- 
passionate set  of  people,  and  their  promptest 
tears  are  not  those  they  shed  on  the  stage." 

"  And  yet,"  I  urged,  "  I  do  not  know  any 
vocation  that  is  more  frequently  abused  or 
more  hastily  decried.  It  was  my  fate,  not  long 
ago,  to  hear  it  assailed  by  a  virtuous  person 
with  the  sweeping  condemnation  that  too  fre- 
quently mars  the  reprehensions  of  respectabil- 
ity. A  little  later,  on  the  same  occasion,  I  had 
to  listen  to  an  equally  intolerant  judgment, 
passed  by  some  one  else,  on  the  Jews.  I  held 
my  peace,  for  extravagance  of  assertion  reduces 
one  to  silence.  But  I  could  not  help  reflecting 
afterwards  that  the  most  far-seeing  and  the 
most  sagaciously  patriotic  of  modern  English 
statesmen  was  a  Jew,  and  the  incontestably 
greatest  of  English  writers  an  actor." 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  43 

"Yes,"  said  the  Poet,  "a  reflection  that 
might  make  people  pause  in  their  too  compre- 
hensive indictments.  But  I  fear  that  of  late 
both  exaggeration  and  acrimony  have  been  on 
the  increase ;  exaggeration  on  all  subjects,  and 
increase  of  acrimony,  national,  racial,  political, 
literary,  and  theological.  Perhaps  it  is  only  a 
passing  reaction  from  the  theoretical  toleration 
that  was,  a  little  while  ago,  in  the  ascendant." 

"  But,"  pleaded  Veronica,  "  surely  you 
would  not,  before  judges  wholly  free  from  ac- 
rimony or  prejudice,  care  to  accept  a  brief  on 
behalf  of  the  existing  British  stage." 

"  Perhaps  not ;  but  my  reluctance  would  not 
arise  from  an  ill  opinion  of  the  actors  them- 
selves. But  one  might  urge,  perchance  not 
without  truth,  that  in  the  higher  spheres  of  the 
histrionic  craft  they  have  something  to  learn." 

"  Why  is  that  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  Is  it  not  because  they  have  not  many  op- 
portunities of  practising  it  ?  " 

"  And  why  is  that,  again  ?  "  I  persisted. 

"  Surely  it  is  because,  while  the  occupants  of 
the  Gallery  but  imperfectly  apprehend,  and 
therefore  rather  dislike,  the  higher  dramatic 


44  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

Art  to  which  form  and  colour,  but  colour  in  due 
subordination  to,  and  co-ordination  with,  the 
other  elements,  music  and  poetry,  otherwise  Lit- 
erature, must  all  be  contributory,  the  occupants 
of  the  Stalls  positively  loathe  it,  and  only  here 
and  there  a  few  scattered  persons  in  the  Pit 
and  Dress  Circle  appreciate  and  love  it.  The 
sculptor,  the  painter,  the  musical  composer, 
the  narrative  or  lyrical  poet,  can  afford  to  fol- 
low his  own  bent,  to  please  himself,  and  to 
take  his  chance  of  pleasing  others,  which  is,  of 
course,  the  proper  method.  If  they  succeed 
in  more  or  less  pleasing  themselves  by  keeping 
before  them  their  own  Ideal  of  their  Art,  but 
fail  thereby  to  please  others,  their  loss  is  slight ; 
and  were  they,  by  abandoning  or  lowering  their 
Ideal,  to  succeed  in  pleasing  others,  their  ma- 
terial gain  would,  as  a  rule,  be  but  moderate, 
and  they  would  pay  heavily  for  it  by  acquiring, 
and  deserving,  their  own  self-contempt.  But 
the  management  of  a  theatre  is  a  serious  pecu- 
niary matter,  and  no  theatre  can  prosper  that 
produces  plays  people  will  not  go  to  see." 

"  Are  we  not  thus  on  the  track,"  asked  Ver- 
onica, "  of  the  reason  why  the  higher  and  more 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  45 

imaginative  English  men-of-letters  rarely  write, 
and  still  more  rarely  see  produced,  dramatic 
works  for  the  stage  ?  " 

"  Unquestionably,"  said  the  Poet.  "  Sum 
up  for  us,  Lamia,  for  I  am  sure  you  can,  the 
reason  and  the  result  in  a  brief  sentence." 

Without  hesitating  a  moment,  Lamia  said : 
"  The  alienation  of  the  author  from  the  audi- 
ence, and  the  indifference  of  English  society, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  to  the  loftier 
Literature." 

******* 

I  noticed  a  deepening  anxiety  on  Lamia's 
face  as  the  hour  drew  near  at  which  Veronica 
said  we  should  arrive  at  the  Rectory,  where 
Tea  was  awaiting  us ;  evidently  because  she 
could  not  dispel  from  her  mind  the  doubt 
whether  the  unconverted  Heathen  would  not 
play  the  leading  part  in  it.  Once  or  twice,  as 
we  approached  a  village,  she  asked,  "  Is  this 
the  place  ? "  receiving  for  answer  that  it  was 
not.  Suddenly  the  Poet  said,  "  Here  we  are, 
are  we  not  ?  " 

No  village  was  visible,  no  hamlet,  no  Church 
even,  no  house,  no  Rectory.  All  the  same,  we 


46  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

made  a  sharp  turn  to  the  left  from  the  cross- 
country road  along  which  we  were  driving, 
ascended  some  thirty  yards  of  a  roughish-made 
lane,  caught  sight  of  a  Church  tower  and  the 
ripe-red  roofs  of  a  dwelling-house  through  some 
trees  of  magnificent  growth,  and,  descending 
warily  a  grass-grown  path,  had  the  mystery 
solved  and  our  bourne  revealed  to  us.  Sign 
of  village  or  hamlet  there  still  was  none ;  but 
a  fourteenth-century  Church,  with  contiguous 
God's-acre,  and  quiet-looking  Rectory  and  sur- 
rounding old-world  garden,  were  now  well  within 
view ;  and,  from  under  the  shelter,  in  the  pad- 
dock outside  this  last,  of  what  Lamia  exclaimed 
was  the  most  splendid  horse-chestnut  she  had 
ever  seen,  came  forward  to  greet  us  a  gravely 
cheerful  clergyman,  and  at  his  side  a  young,  fair, 
simply  dressed  girl  in  the  heyday  of  maiden- 
hood, whom  one  rightly  surmised  to  be  his 
daughter.  He  was  an  old  acquaintance  of  the 
Poet's,  though  the  two  had  not  met  for  several 
years,  and  he  welcomed  us  in  a  manner  at  once 
pastoral  and  genial.  The  girl,  whose  address 
was  a  little  shy,  but  not  embarrassed,  and  par- 
took of  that  modesty  which  is  winsome  in  youth 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  47 

and  captivating  even  in  age,  selecting  Lamia  as 
the  one  whom  she  could  at  first  most  freely 
talk  with,  asked  her  with  a  smile,  made  sweeter 
round  the  mouth  by  a  slight  heightening  of  the 
colour  on  her  cheek,  if  she  would  like  to  see 
the  Church.  "I  think  that  would  be  best," 
said  her  father,  "  as  that  will  give  time  for  tea 
to  be  got  ready.  But  may  I  first  ask  you  to 
look  at  this  tree,  which  they  tell  me  —  but 
every  spot  has  its  self-flattering  legend  —  is  the 
largest  of  its  kind  throughout  England  ?  " 

We  all  agreed,  with  absolute  sincerity,  that 
it  was  prodigious ;  larger  in  girth,  burlier  in 
bough,  more  shapely  and  further-branching  in 
dome,  than  any  we  could  recall  in  our  various 
journeyings. 

"Once  on  a  time"  —  what  an  enduring 
charm  those  old  words  have  !  —  "  this  was  part 
of  a  Royal  Chase,  whose  limits  ranged  as  far 
as  the  distant  horizon  we  to-day  can  see  so 
plainly.  Only  that  one  other  well-timbered 
tree,  colossal  in  reality,  though  dwarfed  by  this 
one,  has  with  it  surveyed  the  vicissitudes  to 
which  man  and  nature  alike  are  subject." 

"How   is   it,"    asked    Veronica,    "that    no 


48  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

dwelling-house  is  near,  much  less  any  sign  of  a 
village  ?  " 

"  The  nearest,"  he  replied,  "  is  a  mile  and  a 
half  away  ;  but  there  are  several  small  hamlets 
in  my  parish,  which  is  a  large  one,  and  requires 
the  services  of  a  stout  cob  or  a  strong  pair  of 
legs.  Happily,  I  have  at  least  the  latter." 

We  walked  through  the  meadow  grass  towards 
the  Church,  Lamia  and  her  newly  made  young 
friend  leading  the  way ;  and  I  thought  how 
"English"  they  looked,  though  of  a  different 
date  from  the  lowly  porch,  aisle-windows,  and 
beacon-surmounted  tower  close  at  hand.  The 
solid  keys  carried  by  the  Rector's  daughter 
were  not  needed  to  admit  us  inside  the  build- 
ing ;  and,  on  entering,  one  at  once  saw  that,  not 
recently,  but  in  more  evil  days,  the  well-inten- 
tioned but  tasteless  restorer  had  been  blunder- 
ingly engaged  on  it.  Apology  was  made  for 
this  by  the  Rector,  who  pleaded  in  extenuation 
that  the  irreparable  reparation  had  taken  place 
much  before  his  time,  but  hoped  enough  was 
left  of  the  better  original  to  be  deserving  of  a 
visit.  This  was  so ;  and  the  wiser  vision  in- 
stinctively passes  from  the  demerits  to  the  merits 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  49 

of  what  he  is  gazing  on,  being  not  a  fault-finder 
but  a  beauty-seeker.  I  defy  the  most  polemical 
layman  or  drum-beating  ecclesiastic  to  have  dis- 
cerned traces  of  either  the  Scarlet  Lady  or  the 
ascetic  anti-sacerdotalist  in  its  decorous  sanc- 
tuary and  scrupulously  cared-for  nave  and 
transept.  It  looked  essentially  a  House  of 
Prayer  and  haunt  of  ancient  peace,  having 
about  it  that  unasserting  air  of  sanctity  which 
reminded  one  of  Pope's  unusually  tender 
couplet : 

On  her  white  breast  a  jet-black  Cross  she  wore, 
Which  Jews  might  kiss  and  Infidels  adore. 

Some  of  the  old  monuments  had  suffered  sad 
havoc  either  from  destructive  or  from  restoring 
hands  ;  and  four  couchant  lions  of  roughly  hewn 
make,  that  had  been  rescued  in  fragments  from 
the  churchyard,  were  without  the  pillars  and 
canopy  they  doubtless  once  upbore.  But  there 
were  other  tombs  that  had  escaped  iconoclast 
and  repairing  architect  alike,  where  half-mailed 
figures  lay  in  stony  dumbness,  and  inscriptions, 
deciphered  with  difficulty,  spoke  briefly  of 
brave,  sagacious,  duty-doing,  duty-command- 


50  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

ing  men,  and  pious,  chaste,  obedient  women, 
who,  though  neither  heard  in  the  market-place 
nor  visible  in  the  polling-booth,  brought  up 
their  children  in  the  fear  of  God,  loyalty  to  the 
Sovereign,  the  love  of  man,  and  tender  com- 
passion for  the  labouring  and  the  lowly. 

"  I  see  no  signs  of  the  unconverted  Heathen," 
I  whispered  to  Lamia  as  we  entered  the  Rec- 
tory Garden,  and  saw  Tea  set  out  under  a 
beech-tree,  evidently  for  a  limited  company. 
Lamia  vouchsafed  no  answer,  but  exclaimed 
aloud  instead : 

"  Now,  that  is  the  sort  of  garden  7  love." 
No  one,  in  whom  the  modern  passion  for 
tidiness  and  trimness  has  not  extinguished  the 
instantaneous  satisfaction  and  refreshing  sense 
as  of  summer  dew  that  fall  on  one  at  the  sight 
of  a  secluded  Rectory  or  Vicarage  Garden,  well 
and  evidently  long  stocked  with  the  sweet-smell- 
ing and  generously  lavish  flowers  that  never  go 
out  of  fashion,  could  have  failed  to  agree  with 
Lamia's  exclamation.  The  Rector  explained 
to  us,  not  with  any  tone  or  air  of  apology,  but 
as  hospitably  giving  us  an  interesting  piece  of 
local  history,  that  his  predecessor  was  a  man 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  51 

of  considerable  private  means,  who,  maintain- 
ing the  less  ecclesiastical  traditions  of  a  former 
day,  drove  a  four-in-hand,  no  doubt  along  a 
lane  and  down  an  incline  then  better  paved  and 
kept  than  now,  had  several  gardeners,  and  had 
therefore  made  a  garden  much  larger  than  was 
needed  to-day,  and  than  he  and  his  daughter, 
with  the  help  of  a  simple  old  parishioner,  could 
properly  tend. 

"  He  was  the  home-grown  Heathen,  then," 
said  Lamia  to  me  aside,  "and  has  disappeared." 

Though  not  overhearing  the  remark,  but  as 
if  to  temper  its  severity,  the  Rector  went  on  to 
say  that,  none  the  less,  he  was  the  kindest  and 
most  helpful  of  rural  clergymen,  with  a  quick 
ear  and  a  ready  hand  to  help  the  honest  folk 
he  regarded  as  his  particular  flock. 

"  I  was  his  curate  for  eighteen  years,  and,  to 
my  surprise,  and  at  first  a  little  to  my  embar- 
rassment, was  nominated  his  successor  when  he 
died.  But  the  just-judging  rustic  labourer,  and 
indeed  the  poor  generally,  always  make  allow- 
ance for  altered  circumstances ;  much  more  so 
than,  I  fear,  do  gardens,  that  rapidly  show  an 
altered  aspect  when  less  lavishly  treated." 


52  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

"  I  wish,"  said  Lamia,  "  some  of  them  were 
treated  with  the  comparative  neglect  that  ac- 
counts for  much  of  the  fascination  of  this 
one." 

"  You  speak,  kind  young  lady,"  said  the 
Rector,  "  only  a  half-truth,  as  those  frequently 
do  who,  happily  for  themselves  and  for  others, 
have  yet  much  experience  to  go  through.  Is 
not  the  whole  or  nearly  the  whole  truth  rather 
this,  that  the  charm  of  a  half-neglected  old  gar- 
den arises  from  its  having,  once  on  a  time,  not 
been  neglected?  Ursula  and  I  could  never 
have  imparted  to  it  —  could  we,  Ursula  ?  — 
the  charm  that  I  own  we  both  sometimes  feel 
it  possesses.  You  must  have  remarked,  or, 
were  you  here  long,  you  could  not  fail  to  re- 
mark, that  the  memory  of  persons  going  down, 
as  Byron  says,  the  vale  of  years,  not  unoften 
fails  them  at  need.  But,  in  so  far  as  such  peo- 
ple arrest  and  interest  our  attention,  is  it  not 
because  we  perceive  that  they  once  knew  more 
than  they  now  quite  recollect,  and  retain  in 
their  modest  homes  something  of  the  classic 
piety  of  Oxford  or  the  more  severe  erudition 
of  its  sister  University  ?  It  is  the  same,  I 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  53 

suspect,  with  this  garden.  If  it  still  be  beau- 
tiful, it  is  because  it  once  was  more  so." 

"  I  am  sure,"  said  the  Poet,  "  we  all  feel  the 
truth  and  appositeness  of  your  week-day  homily. 
But  I  do  not  recall  a  College  garden  either  on 
the  Cam  or  the  Isis  that  can  claim  more  vener- 
able distinction,  or  more  power  to  captivate  and 
impress  the  mind,  than  this  one." 

"  Thanks,"  added  Veronica,  "  I  am  sure,  in 
no  small  measure,  to  the  Head  Gardener's 
Daughter,  whom  "  —  taking  her  hand  —  "I 
should  like  to  be  allowed  to  call  Ursula." 

The  house,  which,  like  the  garden,  was 
larger  than  the  needs  of  its  present  occu- 
pants, was  of  seemly  rather  than  strikingly 
picturesque  architecture,  and  was  indebted  for 
its  external  pleasantness  mainly  to  the  climbers 
that  half  veiled  it.  Within,  it  wore  a  look  of 
refinement  that  owed  nothing  to  recent  ex- 
penditure, and  just  as  little  to  a  desire  to  excite 
astonishment  or  admiration.  But  Veronica  was 
quick  to  discover  a  number  of  interesting  and 
valuable  curios,  books,  prints,  china,  memen- 
toes of  a  quiet,  unostentatious  Past.  With  the 
kindest  intention  in  the  world  she  assured  the 


54  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

Rector  and  Ursula  that  some  of  these  were 
materially  as  valuable  as  they  were  deserving 
of  serious  examination;  probably  thinking  that 
it  was  just  possible  their  "money's  worth" 
might  be,  at  some  time  or  another,  of  use  to 
the  owner.  But  he  only  observed  : 

"  So  I  have  been  told,  more  than  once.  But 
they  seem  to  have  become  part  of  ourselves  ; 
and  ourselves  we  have  to  retain,  for  better,  for 
worse.  Ursula  periodically  dusts  them  with 
jealous  care." 

Passing  once  more  into  the  garden,  we  seated 
ourselves  at  the  meal  Lamia  had  once  looked 
forward  to  with  dread,  but  now  evidently  was 
prepared  to  enjoy  as  thoroughly  as  is  possible 
to  her  when  circumstances  enjoin  her  to  be  on 
what  she  calls  her  Veronesque  behaviour. 

Ursula  took  the  earliest  opportunity,  when 
Tea  was  over,  of  luring  Lamia  away,  to  show 
her,  she  said,  her  own  particular  bit  of  garden, 
but,  one  well  knew,  in  order  to  indulge  freely 
in  the  companionship  of  another  young  girl, 
whom  it  was  plain  she  already  devotedly  ad- 
mired ;  while  we  older  ones  remained  where  we 
were. 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  55 

"  Have  you  any  difficulty,"  asked  the  Poet, 
"  with  the  people  of  your  parish  on  those  ques- 
tions, which  one  regrets  to  see  the  controversial 
inflammability  of  the  time  has  once  more  set 
alight,  and  that  burn  so  readily  ? " 

"  You  mean  questions  of  dogma  and  ritual,  I 
suppose  ?  "  The  Poet  indicated  assent  by  an 
inclination  of  the  head,  so  the  Rector  went  on. 
"  None  whatever ;  for  one  takes  care  to  keep 
fuel  and  fire  apart.  Why  should  they  be 
brought  together?  In  large  towns  it  is  not  so 
easy,  from  the  growing  habit  of  constant  dis- 
cussion, and  where  almost  every  opinion  is  try- 
ing to  get  itself  accepted  as  public  or  prevailing 
opinion,  for  a  clergyman  to  perform  his  duties 
without  being  dragged  or  entrapped,  however 
unwillingly,  into  betraying  his  personal  inclina- 
tion in  these  grave  matters.  But  in  the  coun- 
try, happily,  one  need  not  stir  sleeping  dogs. 
As  a  rule,  the  rustic  mind  is  a  moderate  mind, 
what  is  called  a  conservative  mind,  in  regard  to 
whatever  may  happen  to  be  the  views  and  prac- 
tices he  has  been  accustomed  to,  and  therefore 
wishes  to  preserve.  The  farmer  and  labourer 
are  neither  innovators,  reactionaries,  nor  mys- 


56  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

tics ;  and  so  one  can  well  avoid  controversy 
concerning  dogmas  by  not  dwelling  on  them, 
and  heart-burnings  about  ritual  by  not  chang- 
ing it.  My  wise  predecessor,  who  was  a  man 
of  the  world  no  less  than  a  really  humble  eccle- 
siastic, bequeathed  to  me  at  least  that  portion 
of  his  wisdom.  Accordingly,  we  have  here  no 
dangerous  discussions  as  to  the  historical  mean- 
ing of  Anglican,  Protestant,  Puritan,  High 
Church,  Low  Church,  or  Broad  Church. 
Were  one  to  indulge  one's  own  personal  pref- 
erence, one  might  conceivably  introduce  ser- 
vices a  little  more  frequent,  and  a  little  more 
ornamental ;  and  in  large  towns,  to  avoid  show- 
ing one's  preferences  can  be  no  easy  matter. 
I  can  hardly  doubt  that  what  are  called  by  some 
persons  ^Popish  ceremonies,  incense,  flowers, 
lighted  candles,  much  music,  and  the  rest,  sprang 
originally,  in  no  small  measure,  like  the  mys- 
tery plays,  from  the  necessity  of  gratifying 
the  taste  of  urban  denizens  for  spectacles  and 
what  is  called  diversion,  if  diversion  deemed  to 
be  semi-devotional.  Theatrical  performances, 
Rousseau  says  shrewdly  somewhere  in  Emi/e, 
are  inevitable  in  large  cities.  Do  we  not  see 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  57 

something  analogous  in  the  modern  demand 
that  County  Councils  shall  provide  parks,  open 
spaces,  bands,  free  libraries,  and  so  on,  for  the 
people  ?  A  rustic  population,  being  more 
sparsely  scattered,  can  exist  without  such  dis- 
tractions, at  least  where  they  have  not  been 
inoculated  with,  and  made  restless  by,  the 
town  taste  for  unceasing  excitement." 

"It  is  very  comforting,"  said  the  Poet,  "to 
hear  what  you  tell  us ;  and  I  hope  there  are 
several  country  parishes  one  never  hears  of  un- 
less one  lives  in  them,  of  which  and  of  whose 
shepherd  and  his  flock  the  same  quiet  story 
could  be  told.  But,  taking  a  wider  survey,  I 
think  we  have  all  to  bear  in  mind  that  the 
Church  of  England  can,  no  more  than  our  Con- 
stitution, be  stationary,  but  must  accept  the 
same  influence  of  gradual,  conservative  evolu- 
tion and  adaptation  to  shifting  circumstance. 
Like  the  Crown,  its  authority  must  in  these 
days  be  indirect  and  somewhat  indefinite  rather 
than  despotic  or  dogmatic,  but  not  the  less  real 
on  that  account.  The  Episcopate  must  be,  as 
on  the  whole  surely  it  is,  as  tactful,  as  forbear- 
ing, and  as  much  in  harmony  with  prevailing 


58  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

sentiment  as  is  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the 
Lower  House  of  Convocation  as  representative 
of  public  opinion  as  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  lay  element  cannot  be  excluded  from  it, 
and  it  must  aim  at  an  indulgent  comprehensive- 
ness, and  include  in  it  as  much  of  what  is  called 
Nonconformity  as  is  willing  to  co-operate  with 
it.  Episcopal,  let  us  hope,  it  must  remain,  and 
permanently  allied  with  the  State.  But  it  must 
on  no  account  aim  at  being  sacerdotal ;  sacer- 
dotalism having  always  been  alien  to  the  free 
and  practical  temper  of  England." 

"  I  entirely  concur,"  said  the  Rector,  "  with 
all  you  say."  At  this  moment  Lamia  and 
Ursula  rejoined  us,  and  the  sound  of  the 
wheels  that  were  to  bear  us  away  were  heard 
on  the  gravel.  "  In  a  word,  the  main  object 
of  the  Church  and  Churchmen  should  be 
Peace,  and  their  constant  prayer  be  *  Give  us 
peace  in  our  time,  O  Lord  ! ' 

"He  has  given  it  you  here,"  said  Veronica; 
"  and  we  shall  carry  away  a  deep  sense  of  it." 

For  a  time  we  journeyed  on  in  silence,  till 
Veronica  bade  the  driver  halt,  that  we  might 
gaze  for  a  while  on  a  view  of  valley  and  wood- 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  59 

land  of  even  exceptional  beauty.  Shortly, 
Lamia  said,  "  Now  at  last  I  know  what  I 
should  like  to  be." 

"And  that  is?"  I  asked. 

"  The  fair-faced,  simple-hearted  daughter  of 
a  rural  Rector." 

"  There  is  no  difficulty,  Lamia,"  said  the 
Poet,  "  in  the  fulfilment  of  that  wish.  I 
trust  you  are,  in  essence,  that  already;  that, 
and  something  more.  The  permanent  things, 
as  distinguished  from  the  passing,  the  real,  as 
distinguished  from  the  seeming,  are  widely  dis- 
tributed ;  and  I  will  ask  your  leave  to  recite 
something  on  that  theme  which  has  been  run- 
ning in  my  head  these  last  few  days,  and  which 
I  think  I  shall  remember,  because  I  have  not 
yet  committed  it  to  paper. 

THE   THINGS   THAT   REMAIN 


GLORY  and  glitter  of  Thrones 
Are  flashings  and  fleetings  vain, 

That  Time  discards  and  disowns, 
Shadowy,  passing,  inane. 


60  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Not  the  shows  of  the  proud, 
Not  the  loud-following  crowd, 
But  sickness,  sorrow,  and  shroud, 
These  are  the  things  that  remain. 


Temples  of  marble  and  gold, 

Porphyry,  jasper,  and  pride, 
Housing  the  Gods  of  old, 

Have  vanished,  with  yesterday's  tide. 
They  have  gone,  with  their  glitter  and  glare, 
They  are  mouldered  and  melted  in  air  ; 
Weeping,  and  wailing,  and  prayer, 

These  are  the  things  that  abide. 

in 

Where  are  the  citadels  strong, 

Where  are  the  Palaces  vast, 
Where  sycophants  used  to  throng, 

And  pandar  and  wanton  passed  ? 
They  have  vanished  with  lure  and  lust, 
They  are  sepulchres,  ashes,  and  dust  : 
The  homes  of  the  humble  and  just, 

These  are  the  things  that  last. 

rv 

Statesmen,  orators,  hailed 

As  the  Kings  of  their  little  day, 

What  have  their  plaudits  availed, 
Bronze  forehead,  and  feet  of  clay  ? 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  61 

Disease,  and  the  knock  that  brings 
Death  to  the  door  of  Kings, 
These,  the  enduring  things, 
The  things  that  pass  not  away. 


Obelisk,  column,  and  dome, 

Arches  of  War  and  of  Peace,  — 
Where  are  the  Soldiers  of  Rome, 

Where  are  the  Sages  of  Greece  ? 
Fading  and  falling  of  leaf, 
Seed-time,  and  mellowing  sheaf, 
Home,  and  the  heart's  own  grief, 
These  are  what  never  will  cease. 


Gleaming  and  clashing  of  spears 

Are  barren  as  winter  rain, 
Burnish  the  scythe  and  shears, 

Harvest  the  amber  grain. 
All  that  Fame  chanteth  and  saith 
Is  vaunting  and  vanishing  breath  : 
Love,  and  duty,  and  death, 

These  are  the  things  that  remain. 


II 

WE  were  some  two  hundred  miles  from  where 
Lamia  had  expressed  her  regret  she  had  not 
come  into  the  world  the  daughter  of  a  rural 
Rector ;  and  I  suspect  that,  in  the  interval,  she 
had  seen  more  than  one  haunt  of  ancient  peace 
in  which  her  sensitive  fancy  could  with  content- 
ment have  imagined  her  lot  to  be  cast.  It  is 
one  of  the  advantages  of  our  Island,  that,  though 
comparatively  small  and  so  easily  traversed,  it 
contains  almost  every  variety  of  scenery  that 
delights  the  eye  and  engages  the  heart.  The 
country  we  were  now  passing  through  had  noth- 
ing in  common  with  that  lately  seen,  except  that 
it  also  was  unmistakably  part  of  England,  and 
wore  an  air  of  long-established  tranquillity. 
Hills  of  no  mean  elevation,  though  all  of  them 
tolerably  easy  of  ascent,  save  to  the  feeble  and 
the  aged,  rivers  rightly  designated  such  since 
they  are  never  dry,  if  rarely  over-brimming, 
and  frankly  open  vales  with  music-making 

62 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  63 

streams  wandering  irresponsibly  through  them, 
define  its  character.  Such  marks  as  human 
beings  have  made  on  it  are  quiet  Cathedral 
cities,  small  agricultural  townships,  prosperous- 
looking  homesteads,  and  hamlets  that  seem  to 
have  long  since  reached  their  final  stage  of  de- 
velopment, and  to  be  well  satisfied  that  their 
further  evolution  should  be  arrested.  They  are 
passed  through  rather  than  visited  by  the  tour- 
ist in  search  of  the  obviously  picturesque ;  but 
at  all  seasons  they  furnish  a  sufficient  harvest 
for  the  quiet  eye.  For  our  mid-day  halting- 
stage  we  had  in  view  an  Abbey,  so  extensive  in 
its  ruins,  so  noble  in  its  architecture,  and  so 
admirable  in  its  position,  that  it  enjoys,  it  must 
be  owned,  if  such  should  be  called  enjoyment, 
world-wide  notoriety.  But,  though  the  holiday 
season  was  scarcely  quite  over,  we  counted  on 
the  comparative  absence  of  visitors,  since  Ver- 
onica had  foreseeingly  arranged  that  we  should 
be  there  at  neither  end  of  the  week,  but  in  the 
middle  of  one,  when,  even  in  these  personally 
conducted  excursion  days,  crowds  desist  from 
gathering,  with  their  accompaniment  of  par- 
donable but  painful  merriment. 


64  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

It  naturally  fell  out  that  sometimes  all  four 
of  the  company  travelled  in  company,  whereas 
at  others  we  separated  into  pairs ;  so  that  not 
unoften,  though  certainly  never  too  often,  it 
was  my  lot  to  entertain  Lamia,  which  I  fear  I 
did  but  imperfectly,  and  Lamia's  to  entertain 
me,  which  she  did  to  perfection,  perhaps  in 
some  degree  because,  as  she  remarked,  I  am 
easily  entertained.  Our  conversation  generally 
began  by  a  reference  to  the  recent  talk  of  my 
betters,  which  enabled  Lamia,  at  least  so  she 
said,  to  liberate  her  mind  more  freely  than,  con- 
sistently with  modesty,  she  could  before  supe- 
rior persons  like  the  Poet  and  Veronica.  Her 
way  of  drawing  the  distinction  was  not  so  di- 
rectly uncomplimentary  to  me  as  that ;  indeed 
she  almost  invariably  left  it  ambiguous  whether 
I  was  to  regard  the  form  of  partiality  she  showed 
me  as  flattering  or  the  reverse. 

This  morning,  however,  thanks  perhaps  to 
the  spell  still  exercised  over  her  by  the  Rectory 
garden  and  its  occupants,  and  whom  she  seemed 
unable  to  forget,  she  treated  me  to  serious 
thoughts,  seriously  expressed.  "  Is  it,"  she 
said, "  because  we  are  moving  about  from  place 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  65 

to  place,  and,  though  leisurely  and  pleasantly 
withal,  are  travelling,  that  the  thought  struck 
me  last  night,  Is  the  end  of  life  the  end  of  a 
journey,  or  only  the  beginning  of  another  ?  If 
the  latter,  it  is  clear  we  ought  to  make  prepara- 
tions for  it.  Yet  how  can  we  do  that,  if  we  do 
not  know,  or  know  but  vaguely,  anything  of 
the  land  to  which  we  are  bound  ?  What,  and 
whom,  shall  we  find  there  ?  I  feel  sure  Ursula 
asks  no  such  questions,  being  too  meek  to  do 
so,  and  is  content  to  pass  in  and  out  of  the  old 
Church  of  which  she  told  me  she  is  to  all  in- 
tents the  sacristan,  by  the  Door  of  Humility. 
Do  you  remember  the  saying  that  the  most 
complete  persons  are  those  who  have  about 
them  something  of  the  mellowness  of  October 
without  having  quite  lost  the  freshness  of  April  ? 
Ursula  seemed  to  me  to  answer  to  the  de- 
scription." 

"  And  the  Rector  still  more  so,  don't  you 
think?"  I  said. 

"  Possibly ;  and  is  not  the  reason  to  be 
sought,  in  their  case  at  least,  in  the  simple  sort 
of  life  they  lead  ?  Most  persons  in  these  days 
would  speak  of  it  as  a  small  life.  But  no  one 


66  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

leads  a  small  life  that  has  a  large  heart ;  and 
it  is  comforting  to  observe  that  unlearned,  and 
even  little-travelled  people  who  have  large  hearts 
seem  to  be  on  a  friendly,  familiar,  and  appreci- 
ative footing  with  the  really  large  and  variously 
gifted  minds.  How  run  the  lines  in  a  certain 
Dialogue  at  Fiesole?  Is  it  not  something  like 
this? 

"  Even  in  Autumn  harvest  you  demand 
Returning  hope  and  blossom  of  the  Spring, 
All  seasons  and  sensations,  and  at  once, 
Do  we  blame  ? 

We  envy  rather  the  eternal  youth 
We  cannot  share. 

But  the  simple,  humble,  sensitive,  large  hearts 
of  which  we  were  speaking,  do  share  this  eter- 
nal youth." 

Then  silence  fell  on  her  thoughts,  and,  as 
she  had  said  enough  to  set  one  pondering,  I 
was  silent  likewise  ;  and  so  we  moved  on  taci- 
turnly from  dimpled  green  slope  to  dimpled 
slope,  from  discursive  stream  to  discursive 
stream,  from  grove  and  meadow  to  meadow  and 
grove.  At  length  I  wanted  to  hear  her  voice 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  67 

again ;  so,  lingeringly  retrospective,  as  I  sus- 
pected she  also  still  was,  I  said : 

"  How  consoling  it  was  to  hear  the  Rector, 
that  quiet  afternoon,  describe  the  undogmatic 
character  of  his  Sunday  exhortations  to  his 
parishioners  !  Did  you  not  think  so  ?  " 

"  You  forget,"  said  Lamia.  "  He  spoke  of 
that  after  Ursula  and  I  had  wandered  away 
from  you.  But  Veronica  repeated  to  me  the 
substance  of  what  he  said  ;  and,  had  it  not  been 
that  his  daughter  had  been  talking  to  me  just  as 
wisely,  I  should  have  much  regretted  to  have 
missed  it.  I  have  thought  since,  perhaps  mis- 
takenly, that  there  is  deeper  danger  to  modern 
society  than  any  audible  clash  of  theological 
dogmas,  perilous  as  these  may  be  ;  for  they 
can,  with  tact,  be  avoided,  as  the  Rector  said 
he  himself  avoids  them,  and,  as  you  remember, 
Rousseau's  Savoyard  Vicar  avoided  them.  Is 
not  the  real  danger  the  antagonism  that,  in  spite 
of  appearances  and  formal  ties,  prevails  between 
the  modern  State  and  the  Church,  the  Church 
that  tries  so  hard  to  be  modern  likewise,  but 
is  so  ancient  that  the  endeavour  is  far  from  be- 
ing successful.  Each  has  its  Ideal,  and  the 


68  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

Ideals  are  different.  I  must  ask  the  Poet  — 
and  you  will  perhaps  pardon  the  pupil  for  hav- 
ing, this  morning,  if  so  imperfectly,"  she  added 
humbly,  "  repeated  lessons  inculcated  by  her 
chief  instructor,  —  if  I  exaggerate  the  peril,  in 
imagining  this  semi-divorce  between  Church  and 
State  must  inflict  grave  injury  on  their  common 
children." 

"  I  imagine,"  I  said,  "  he  would  answer  that 
Man  has  both  Ideals,  and  will  continue  to  insist 
that  both  shall  be  more  or  less  attained  by  con- 
tinuous compromise." 

"  Possibly.  Meanwhile  let  us  be  thankful 
the  first  Haunt  of  Ancient  Peace  we  have  vis- 
ited has  given  us  food  for  thought  very  differ- 
ent from  the  talk  about  persons  and  things 
insignificant,  which  too  often  now  forms  the 
staple  of  conversation  in  polite  circles." 

"  Do  you  know  what  their  income  is  ?  They 
live  rent-free,  it  is  true,  but  his  stipend  is  less 
than  two  hundred  a  year." 

"  How  I  wish,"  said  Lamia,  "  I  could  be  al- 
lowed to  stock  Ursula's  wardrobe !  I  would 
gladly  give  her  all  my  frocks  in  exchange  for 
her  graceful  figure  and  sanctuary  manners." 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  69 

Upon  that  subject  I  have  my  own  opinion. 
But  it  was  so  tenderly  thought,  and  so  meekly 
expressed,  that  I  said  nothing. 

Veronica  and  the  Poet,  who  were  a  little  way 
in  front  of  us,  had  stopped,  and  now  asked  if 
we  would  join  them. 

"  Only  too  pleased,"  said  Lamia.  "  My  com- 
panion has  been  so  frivolous,  and  in  such  high 
spirits,  that  I  began  to  fear  we  were  going  back 
to  the  garden  that  he  loves.  Please  assure  me, 
Veronica,  that  is  not  so." 

"  Not  yet,  dear  Lamia.  We  wanted  to  point 
out  to  you  that  place  on  the  wooded  horizon  to 
the  left,  not  often  equalled  in  its  architecture, 
and  I  think  nowhere  surpassed  in  position." 

"  What  a  situation  !  What  a  noble  air  it 
wears  !  What  trees  !  What  a  park  !  That  is 
the  historic  England  of  the  last  four  hundred 
years.  May  we  not  go  and  see  it  ?  " 

"  You  see  it  best,"  said  the  Poet,  in  a  tone 
that  sounded  rather  regretful,  "from  here.  I 
have  stayed  there  more  than  once,  for  I  knew 
its  late  occupant,  a  gentleman,  a  scholar,  a  states- 
man, a  patriot.  I  almost  think,  when  he  was 
there,  it  was,  despite  its  magnificence,  a  haunt 


70  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

of  ancient  peace.  But  when  he  passed  to  the 
Perfect  Peace  of  all,  it  became,  if  the  strong 
phrase  be  permitted,  a  hell  of  modern  revelry. 
Book-makers,  women  it  would  be  a  libel  on 
Athens  and  Alcibiades  to  speak  of  as  Aspa- 
sias,  and  music-hall  buffoons,  were  then  its 
chief  visitors,  and  Bridge,  with  high  stakes,  its 
principal  diversion.  Its  tenant  is  periodically 
summoned  for  driving  his  Motor  Cars  beyond 
the  pace  permitted  by  the  law,  and  that  is  the 
least  heinous  of  his  offences.  He  is  the  son 
and  successor  of  my  friend.  When  that  hap- 
pens, one  must  be  content  to  say  *  Guarda,  e 
passa.' ' 

"  Such  a  case  is  surely  an  exceptional  one,"  I 
said  ;  "  though  I  have  noticed  that,  since  it  fur- 
nishes searchers  for  what  is  called  fashionable 
intelligence  with  many  paragraphs,  it  is  not  in- 
frequently taken  as  a  text  for  a  fresh  homily  on 
the  decline  and  fall  of  the  British  Aristocracy." 

"  Yes,  the  easiest  way  of  moralising.  The 
other  day  I  overheard  some  one  expatiating  on 
the  inertness,  the  stupidity,  the  conservative 
crassness,  the  fatal  self-complacency,  of  the 
English  People,  and  I  wondered  to  myself  how 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  71 

so  incapable  a  race  had  acquired,  and  still  re- 
tains, possession  of  half  the  globe." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Veronica,  "  theorists  al- 
ways have  a  theory  that  accounts  for  every- 
thing." 

"  Just  so,"  I  said.  "  But  is  it  not  a  curious 
circumstance  that  all  the  Laws  of  Human  Evo- 
lution, and  Philosophies  of  History,  with  which 
we  have  been  furnished  so  profusely  of  recent 
years,  while  conclusively  demonstrating  to  the 
theorist  himself  the  course  of  the  Past,  fail  to 
furnish  us  with  any  means  of  correctly  surmis- 
ing the  march  of  the  Future  ?  It  is  as  though 
Astronomers  should  offer  us  a  Law  that  re- 
corded infallibly  the  orbit  of  the  planets  for 
millions  of  bygone  years,  but  did  not  afford  us 
any  trustworthy  information  as  to  where  they 
will  be  found  to-night." 

"  The  pace,"  continued  the  Poet,  "  at  which 
the  son  of  my  friend  conducts  his  life,  and 
which  resembles  that  of  his  motor  cars,  was  not 
long  in  killing,  or  at  least  in  hopelessly  maim- 
ing, the  income  that  proceeded  from  a  hand- 
some estate ;  and  that  Home  of  England  on 
which  you  gaze,  like  only  too  many  others, 


7z  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

has  for  a  time  passed  into  the  occupation  of 
strangers,  who  in  this  case  are,  as  one  likes  to 
think,  of  our  own  blood  and  race,  though  they 
come  from  the  land  that  lies  Westward  over 
many  hundred  leagues  of  salt  water.  I  have 
no  doubt  they  live  decorous  and  hospitable 
lives ;  but  one  cannot  help  regretting  that  the 
old  stock  does  not  remain  in  the  old  soil." 

Lamia  gave  a  deep  and  sympathetic  sigh. 
But,  perhaps  because  she  had  not  been  success- 
ful in  repressing  it,  nor  I  in  showing  how  it 
touched  me,  she  promptly  added : 

"  My  forbears  were  not  as  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  least  attractive  but  most  prof- 
itable of  the  domestic  animals  as  I  should  wish 
them  to  have  been  ;  and  therefore  I  am  not  of 
the  rich  material  of  which  duchesses  are  occa- 
sionally made,  and  perhaps  at  my  age  I  ought 
to  cease  contemplating  the  possibility  of  being 
inundated  with  even  the  more  modest  matri- 
monial gifts ;  silver  inkstands,  tortoise-shell 
paper-cutters,  and  capricious  carriage-clocks. 
But  I  am  not  without  my  ambitions ;  and 
nothing  less  than  a  submarine  telegraphic  pro- 
posal, with  '  Wire  reply,  answer  paid,'  ap- 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  73 

pended,  will  satisfy  me.  My  answer  would, 
of  course,  be  *  Certainly ' ;  and  though  I 
should  have  to  leave  the  Garden  that  I  Love 
for  a  mansion  in  Twent-Cent  Nineteen  Hun- 
dredth Street,  and  a  country  house  on — which 
Lake  is  it  ?  I  should  at  least  have  macada- 
mised the  way  to  a  more  brilliant  avenue  for 
my  daughters,  and  enabled  them  to  rescue  old 
places  from  the  tastes  of  new  gentlemen. 
They,  or  their  husbands  for  them,  and  if  not, 
then  their  female  descendants,  should  gain  ad- 
mittance to  the  ranks  of  the  titled ;  for  I  need 
not  say  I  should  not  allow  them  to  marry 
poets,  since,  as  I  think  I  once  observed,  though 
the  wives  of  peers  are  peeresses,  and  the  daugh- 
ters of  millionaires  are  million-heiresses,  neither 
the  wives,  nor  the  daughters,  nor  even  the 
most  admiring  friends  of  poets,  are  poet- 
esses." 

"  Are  not  titles,"  asked  Veronica,  accommo- 
dating herself  with  more  than  usual  flexibility 
to  Lamia's  mood,  yet  speaking,  I  suspect,  with 
a  certain  serious  intention,  "  the  distinction  of 
people,  otherwise  undistinguished ;  save  of 
course  those  who  render  direct  service  to  the 


74  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

State,  or  have  inherited  them  from  former 
holders  who  once  did  the  same  ? " 

"  That  is  exactly  what  I  think,"  said  Lamia ; 
"  and  as  all  my  descendants,  if  I  had  any, 
would,  I  am  sure,  be  as  undistinguished  as  I 
am  myself,  that  is  why  I  anticipate  for  them 
artificial  distinction." 

"  I  cannot  doubt,  Lamia,"  said  the  Poet, 
"  you  can  marry  any  one  anywhere,  when  it  is 
your  good  pleasure  to  do  so.  But,  though 
one  always  regrets  to  see  what  are  called  old 
families  unable,  either  through  their  own  fault, 
or  by  the  stress  and  strain  of  an  emulously 
luxurious  time,  to  continue  to  live  in  the  old 
places,  it  always  gives  one  pleasure  to  hear  they 
are  being  rented  by  Americans,  whose  rever- 
ence for  haunts  of  ancient  peace  brings  them  to 
the  old  country.  We  have  much  to  learn  from 
them,  and  I  trust  there  is  yet  something  for 
them  to  learn  from  us." 

With  each  fresh  winding  in  our  progress, 
the  scenery  became  more  and  more  majestic  in 
its  beauty.  Minor  streams  still  abounded,  and 
flashed  and  flickered  in  the  mid-day  sun,  but, 
by  degrees,  their  music  grew  less  audible  and 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  75 

their  course,  without  ceasing  to  be  devious,  less 
frolicsome  and  more  limpid;  and  one  broad 
unarrested  river  journeyed  on  through  a  spa- 
cious valley,  from  which  dense  woods  retired 
up  the  hill-slopes,  partly  as  though  from  a 
desire  to  look  down  more  advantageously,  and 
in  part  as  if  in  reverence  for  something  not  yet 
within  sight.  A  sudden  sweep  of  the  road, 
caused  by  the  unalterable  pathway  of  the  river, 
a  stone  bridge  with  graceful  arches  and  parapet 
of  ancient  masonry,  and  then  the  entire  range 
of  the  ruins,  rising  from  a  sward  of  greenest 
smoothness,  was  before  us.  We  gazed  in  sym- 
pathetic silence,  born  partly  of  wonder,  but  still 
more  of  reverence,  before  this  noble  heirloom 
bequeathed  to  us  by  the  Past.  One  human  fig- 
ure, one  only,  could  we  descry ;  that  evidently 
of  a  draughtsman,  with  labour  concentrated  on 
the  motionless  survival  of  days  passed  away. 

"  The  altar  had  vanished,  the  rood-screen  flown, 
Foundation  and  buttress  were  ivy-grown  ; 
The  arches  were  shattered,  the  roof  was  gone, 
The  mullions  were  mouldering  one  by  one  ; 
Foxglove,  and  cow-grass,  and  waving  weed 
Grew  over  the  scrolls  where  you  once  could  read 

Benedicke." 


76  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Thus  recited  Lamia,  Veronica  adding,  "  Yes, 
here  indeed  must  Brother  Benedict  have  re- 
turned when  *  The  bird  had  been  singing  a 
thousand  years,'  and 

"He  sate  him  down  on  a  fretted  stone, 
Where  rains  had  beaten  and  winds  had  blown 
And  opened  his  ritual-book,  and  read 
The  prayers  that  we  read  for  our  loved  ones  dead, 
While  nightfall  crept  on  the  twilight  air, 
And  darkened  the  page  of  the  final  prayer, 

Benedicite." 

Passing  under  the  Abbey  gateway,  we  took 
our  separate  paths  among  the  ruins,  each  of  us 
influenced  by  the  instinct  that,  though,  if  I 
may  say  so,  four  persons  with  feelings  more 
attuned  could  not  well  be  met  with,  a  little 
preliminary  speechless  worship,  previous  to 
any  joint  hymn  of  praise,  was  due  to  the 
sanctity  of  the  place,  just  as  the  solitary  slow 
notes  of  some  solemn  organ  introduce  the  out- 
burst of  full  choral  service  that  is  to  follow. 
But,  even  when,  one  by  one,  we  came  together 
again,  our  conversation  resembled  rather  the 
simplicity  of  plain  chant  than  anything  more 
elaborate.  When  one  is  deeply  moved,  the 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  77 

most  unstudied  words  are  those  which  rise  the 
most  naturally  to  the  lips ;  though,  should  it 
not  be  added,  and  not  forgotten,  that  the  more 
imaginative  minds  endowed  with  a  copious 
vocabulary  have  a  simplicity  of  their  own 
just  as  simple  as  that  of  the  simplest  persons, 
if  a  trifle  more  striking. 

"A  terrible  child-bed  hast  thou  had,  my  dear; 
No  light,  no  fire  :   the  unfriendly  elements 
Forgot  thee  utterly  ;  nor  have  I  time 
To  give  thee  hallowed  to  thy  grave,  but  straight 
Must  cast  thee,  scarcely  coffined,  in  the  ooze, 
Where,  for  a  monument  upon  thy  bones, 
And  aye-remaining  lamps,  the  belching  whale 
And  humming  water  must  o'erwhelm  thy  corpse, 
Lying  with  simple  shells." 

That  is  Shakespeare's  simplicity.  Let  us 
not  forget  this,  I  venture  to  say,  lest  the 
poverty  of  our  imaginations  and  the  paucity 
of  our  speech  should  lead  us  to  be  unjust  to 
the  gods  of  more  majestic  but  equally  simple 
utterance. 

We  had,  accordingly,  little  to  say  to  each 
other  concerning  what  moved  us  so  profoundly  ; 
nor  did  any  of  us  strive  to  eke  out  the  reserve 


78  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

of  our  emotion  by  an  untimely  display  of 
erudition,  than  which,  on  such  occasions,  noth- 
ing, I  think,  can  be  more  out  of  place.  In 
wandering  amid  a  scene  that  tells  its  own  tale 
and  records  its  own  history,  it  is  better  that 
each  one  should  be  guide  and  instructor  to 
himself;  and  one  felt  that  this  dead  but  withal 
not  dumb  relic  of  the  Past  could  preach  the 
best  and  most  consoling  sermon  on  inevitable 
mortality. 

Shortly,  however,  I  noticed  that  Lamia  was 
engaged  in  apparently  friendly  talk  with  the 
only  human  being  visible  in  the  Abbey  enclos- 
ure beside  ourselves.  She  has  in  a  pre-eminent 
degree  what  the  Marquis  de  Mirabeau  said  was 
one  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  his  scape- 
grace but  celebrated  son,  le  terrible  don  de 
familiarite  ;  meaning  by  terrible  not  anything 
alarming,  nor  yet  anything  untactful  and  objec- 
tionable, but  something  very  much  the  reverse. 
The  words  may  perhaps  be  rendered  into  Eng- 
lish, "the  insinuating  gift  of  readily  going  out 
of  oneself,  and  of  luring  others  into  doing  the 
same."  It  is  this  that  would  enable  Lamia  to 
speak  to  the  proudest  Monarch  without  being 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  79 

presented,  yet  not  make  him  feel  she  had  taken 
an  unwarrantable  liberty,  and  to  address  the 
most  shy,  the  most  awkward,  and  the  most 
reserved  of  British  peasants,  without  causing 
them  the  faintest  embarrassment. 

"  Who  is  your  new  acquaintance,  Lamia  ? " 
asked  Veronica,  when  Lamia  joined  us  in  what 
had  manifestly  been  the  refectory  of  the  monks 
who  had  once  prayed,  studied,  discoursed, 
written,  illuminated,  cultivated  their  cabbages, 
distributed  alms  to  the  needy,  and  caught  and 
ate  their  fish,  at  this  then  unruined  edifice. 

"  I  am  not  quite  sure,  but  I  believe  it  to  be 

,"  naming  a  painter  much  thought  of  by 

painters,  and  fairly  well  known  to  the  world  at 
large,  but  not  one  whose  name  perpetually  meets 
the  eye  in  print,  together  with  the  price  fetched 
for  his  pictures.  "  I  think  I  recognise  him  from 
portraits  I  have  casually  seen ;  but  your  obser- 
vation is  more  retentive  than  mine,  Veronica, 
and  you  would  be  able  to  say  if  I  am  right. 
In  any  case,  he  is  a  most  agreeable  talker. 
Shall  I  ask  him  to  join  us  at  luncheon,  always 
supposing  we  are  to  have  one  ? " 

"  Do   so,    by   all    means,"    said    the    Poet. 


8o  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  There  are  no  companions  more  congenial 
to  one  than  artists  who  are  willing  talkers." 

"  And  see,  Lamia,"  added  Veronica,  "  lun- 
cheon is  ready,  and  awaiting  us  in  that  far 
corner  of  the  roofless  refectory." 

Lamia  was  not  long  in  returning,  and  bring- 
ing captive  her  new  acquaintance. 

"  Yes,"  whispered  Veronica,  "  it  is  he." 

I  need  hardly  say  that  the  painter  was 
warmly  welcomed,  and  showed  himself  as 
much  at  home  as  one  always  is  with  those 
who  know  how  to  make  one  so. 

"  It  does  not  matter  in  the  least,"  he  said, 
as  we  sate  down,  some  on  the  turf,  some  on 
fragments  of  fallen  masonry,  "  how  poor,  or 
how  bad  one's  work  may  be,  for,  by  one  of 
the  kindliest  of  dispensations,  poor  work,  if 
loved  for  its  own  sake,  is  just  as  absorbing 
as  the  supremely  excellent ;  and,  though  I 
believe  there  is  somewhere  where  I  was  sit- 
ting the  materials  for  a  mid-day  meal,  which 
I  fear  would  be  no  addition  to  your  more 
tempting  table,  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it ; 
and  since  you  are  so  hospitable  "  —  address- 
ing Veronica  by  her  more  ceremonial  name, 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  81 

which  showed  he  knew  who  she  was  — "  as 
to  ask  me  to  join  you,  conversation  will  add 
colour  to  this  conventual  repast." 

"  But  you  remember,"  said  the  Poet,  "  monk- 
ish brotherhoods  never  conversed  at  meals,  but 
had  to  listen,  as  they  ate,  to  one  of  their  mem- 
bers who  read  from  a  vellum-bound  volume  on 
an  oaken  lectern  the  edifying  history  of  some 
ascetic  Saint." 

"  Quite  so,"  said  the  new-comer,  "  and  we 
equally  should  much  like  to  be  read  to  by  a 
certain  member  of  our  own  party,  were  it  not 
that  we  feel  we  ought  to  show  some  considera- 
tion for  his  appetite,  which,  I  have  heard,  poets 
share  with  more  material  persons." 

"  They  are  perfect  ogres,"  said  Lamia,  "  as 
far  as  I  have  had  any  experience  of  them. 
May  I  give  you  some  of  this  pasty,  which  I 
assume  is  the  designation  for  it  suited  to  the 
place  and  occasion  ?  " 

I  began  to  be  a  little  afraid  that  Lamia's  vein 
of  levity,  on  which  one  comes  at  all  sorts  of 
moments  and  quite  unexpectedly,  and  in  which 
we  all  so  readily  indulge  her,  might  hinder  or 
mar  more  serious  colloquy.  But  Veronica, 


82  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

too,  discovered  the  danger,  and  averted  it  by 
observing : 

"  One  can  understand,  even  if  one  cannot 
wholly  approve,  the  motives  that  led  to  the 
invasion  of  the  monasteries  by  the  Civil  Power 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  to  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  monks,  to  the  appropriation  of 
their  property,  and  to  its  division  between  the 
Crown  and  a  new  Aristocracy  created  to  replace 
the  old  one  which  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  had 
more  than  decimated.  But  was  it  necessary 
to  reduce  to  ruins  throughout  the  land  such 
splendid  buildings  as  the  one  in  which  we  are 
sitting  ? " 

"  One  can  hardly  believe,"  said  the  artist, 
"  that,  in  many  cases,  it  was  done  intentionally. 
Positive  hatred  of  Beauty,  which  unfortunately 
accompanied  the  Puritan  Movement,  came  later; 
and,  though  there  may  be  no  sacrilegious  icono- 
clasm  of  which  the  more  austere  forms  of  consci- 
entious theological  conviction  cannot  be  guilty, 
one  suspects  that  the  monastic  edifices  whose 
ruins  still  add  charm  to  the  winsomeness  of  our 
island,  were  unroofed,  and  so  exposed  to  the 
winds,  rains,  mists,  and  frosts  of  our  dilapidat- 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  83 

ing  climate,  long  before  the  days  of  Oliver 
Cromwell." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Poet,  "  Kings  and  nobles 
who  want  money  are  not  easily  deterred  from 
spoliation  by  a  spirit  of  reverence ;  and  what 
is  true  of  English  Monarchs  and  English 
nobles  four  hundred  years  ago  and  more,  is 
equally  true  of  Italian  Popes  and  Roman 
nobles  at  a  still  earlier  period.  Thus  Goth, 
Gaul,  and  Hun  are  popularly  supposed  to 
have  done  to  the  classical  buildings  of  the 
Eternal  City,  as  Puritan  fanaticism  is  simi- 
larly supposed  to  have  done  to  our  Abbeys, 
what  in  reality  was  effected  by  other  persons, 
animated  by  a  quite  different  motive,  the  aun 
sacra  fames  of  Horace,  and  P Intone,  il  gran 
nemico  of  Dante.  They  wanted  money,  or 
money's  worth,  and  they  seized  it.  Stone 
already  quarried,  and  lead  already  fit  for  domes- 
tic use,  came  in  most  handy,  as  we  say,  for  the 
country  palaces  of  newly  titled  ambition." 

"  I  can  well  understand,"  said  Lamia,  "  that 
so  much-married  a  Prince  as  the  first  Defender 
of  our  Faith  was  rather  hard  up  sometimes.  We 
poor  simple  vestals  cost  nobody  anything ;  but 


84  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

even  one  wife,  I  am  told,  can  make  very  tight 
indeed  the  sacred  bond  of  matrimony.  It  is 
easy,  therefore,  to  surmise  that  a  gentleman 
who  generously  saddled  himself  with  a  baker's 
half-dozen  of  them  scarcely  knew  sometimes 
which  way  to  turn  for  convincing  tokens  of  his 
affection  and  his  sovereignty.  Probably  we 
are  lunching  amid  all  that  is  left  of  what  pro- 
vided the  price  of  Anne  Boleyn's  devotedness, 
or  furnished  the  trousseau  of  Anne  of  Cleves. 
What  dear  things  wives  are !  I  wonder  no 
one  was  earlier  with  the  observation,  Chercbez  la 
femme,  than  a  modern  Frenchman.  Perhaps 
there  was.  I  am  not  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  works  of  Martial,  but  I  fancy  he  was 
not  an  unlikely  Latin  to  have  defrauded  the 
nineteenth  century  of  copyright  in  the  idea. 
You,  Veronica,  can  tell  us,  I  am  sure.  For  my 
part,  I  can  only  say  that  the  man  is  a  poor- 
spirited  and  most  unchivalrous  creature  who 
would  bewail  the  unroofing  of  a  monastery,  if 
it  was  done  to  provide  poor  ladies  with  pretty 
frocks." 

I  could  see  that  Veronica,  not  unnaturally, 
thought   this    disquisition    of  Lamia's    a  little 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  85 

long,  and  would  have  liked  to  curb  it ;  but 
it  was  patent  that  the  painter  was  delighted 
with  her  light  accompaniment  to  our  al  fresco 
luncheon.  Did  she  indulge  in  it  in  order  to 
make  yet  one  more  captive  ?  But,  in  truth,  I 
never  know  why  she  does  or  says  anything. 

"  Your  survey  of  History,  and  your  theory 
of  the  true  cause  that  led  to  the  destruction  of 
English  monasteries,"  said  the  painter,  "  is  most 
suggestive,  and  constitutes,  no  doubt,  the  best 
apology  that  has  ever  been  advanced  for  the 
conduct  of  Bluff  King  Hal  and  his  ennobled 
sycophants.  But  perhaps  an  artist  of  a  sort, 
though  he  be  not  an  architect,  may  be  forgiven 
for  regretting  that  a  sumptuary  appetite,  the 
necessity  of  feeding  which  one  of  course  recog- 
nizes, should  have  led  to  the  disappearance  of 
so  much  that  was  beautiful,  since  I  have  often 
thought  it  still  further  fostered,  if  it  did  not 
engender,  that  insensibility  to  Art  and  to  the 
Beauty  which  perforce  underlies  all  Art  which 
the  English  People,  so  distinguished  in  other 
respects,  have  since  that  period,  and  for  so 
long  a  time,  exhibited.  What  think  you  about 
that  ?  "  he  added,  turning  pointedly  to  the  Poet. 


86  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  I  had  not  considered  it,"  he  answered. 
"  But,  as  put  by  you,  it  strikes  me  as  plausible. 
The  destruction  of  the  Monasteries,  and  the 
defacement  and  spoliation  of  the  Cathedrals, 
gave  to  what  may  be  called  the  New  Asceti- 
cism, the  Puritan  Movement  in  England, 
additional  encouragement  and  strength ;  and 
Puritanism,  whatever  may  be  its  moral  merits, 
is  undoubtedly  unbeautiful,  not  to  say  anti- 
beautiful,  in  its  outward  manifestations.  Thus, 
save  in  a  few  country  houses,  we  did  not  in 
this  country  get  the  advantage  which  was  got 
elsewhere  from  the  Classical  Renaissance.  Per- 
haps we  are  too  serious,  too  ethical  and  contro- 
versial a  people,  to  have  done  so.  A  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici  and  a  Leo  the  Tenth  would  here 
have  found,  not,  as  in  Italy,  a  ready,  but  a 
recalcitrant  and  resisting  soil  for  the  long-buried 
seed  their  exploring  emissaries  brought  from 
the  East  of  Europe  and  sowed  with  such  abun- 
dant results." 

"  Yet,"  said  Lamia,  "  I  remember,  when  we 
were  in  our  Winter-Quarters  in  Florence,  re- 
flecting that  Savonarola  was  rewarded  for  the 
Burning  of  the  Vanities  by  being,  shortly  after- 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  87 

wards,  burnt  himself.  That  was  artistic  justice 
with  a  vengeance.  In  England,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  Merry  Monarch,  by  his  destructive- 
ness,  founded  a  polemical  Protestantism,  to 
which  we  are  indebted  for  what,  though  an  as 
yet  unenfranchised  female,  I  suppose  I  must 
call  our  political  liberties,  a  passion  for  wran- 
gling over  dogma  and  ritual,  and  an  utter 
ignorance  how  to  put  on  our  gowns." 

"  I  think,"  said  Veronica,  "  some  of  us  know 
how  to  put  on  our  gowns,  to  abstain  from  wran- 
gling over  ritual  and  dogma,  and  are  quite  as 
enfranchised  as  is  good  for  us.  But,  standing 
here  amid  the  ruins  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
Abbey,  and  still  influenced  perhaps  by  another 
pious  haunt  of  ancient  peace  we  recently  visited, 
a  rural  rectory  of  the  English  Church,  it  strikes 
one  to  ask  if  the  Papacy  is  likely  to  endure,  we 
need  not  say  for  ever,  for  that  is  too  unlimited 
a  period  for  our  limited  powers  of  prophecy  to 
deal  with,  but  as  long  as  what  Lamia  has  called 
a  polemical  Protestantism." 

"  One  sees  no  reason,"  answered  our  guest, 
"  why  that  should  not  be.  Quod  semper,  quod 
ubique,  quod  ab  omnibus,  is  the  most  untenable 


88  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

of  boasts.  Nothing  changes  so  much  as  the 
Papacy ;  but  it  changes  slowly,  cautiously,  and 
circumspectly.  It  is  a  kaleidoscope,  but  not  a 
kaleidoscope  in  the  hands  of  a  child.  Its  dog- 
mas may  seem  not  to  have  changed  for  hun- 
dreds of  years ;  but  the  interpretation  of  them 
is  being  perpetually  accommodated  to  suit  every 
shifting  mood  of  man  and  every  winding  cur- 
rent of  thought ;  and  even  its  ritual,  which  is 
so  copious  and  apparently  so  fixed,  takes  new 
meaning  from  new  conditions.  Can  one  imagine 
any  two  things  more  unlike  than  the  Papacy 
of  the  earlier  Gregories,  and  the  Papacy  of  the 
two  Medici,  of  Roderigo  Borgia,  and  of  the 
Delia  Rovere  patron  of  Raphael  and  Michel- 
angelo ;  or  than  the  Papacy  of  San  Clemente, 
for  example,  and  the  Papacy  of  Saint  Peter's  ? 
Saint  Peter's  is  far  from  being  one  of  the  most 
beautiful,  but  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  most  in- 
structive buildings  in  the  world.  The  domi- 
nant note  of  the  Classical  Renaissance  was,  I 
suspect,  not  Art,  as  is  usually  supposed,  but 
Rationalism,  or  the  re-enthronement  of  Reason, 
after  a  long  period  of  sentiment  and  emotion  ; 
in  other  words,  the  admission  of  Hellenic  Light 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  89 

into  the  mystical  gloaming  of  Gothic  Architec- 
ture and  the  mediaeval  spirit.  Hence  Classical 
and  Palladian  Churches,  with  ample  nave,  spa- 
cious transepts,  and  abundant  light,  supplanted 
forest-like  aisle  and  dim-lit  sanctuary.  This 
was  the  architectural  expression  of  Rationalism. 
Rationalism  led  to  scepticism  ;  and  Saint  Peter's, 
with  its  vast,  open,  grandiose  space,  and  clear 
white  light,  has  helped  more  than  any  other 
sacred  edifice  to  undermine  religious  feeling, 
and  to  second  the  doubts  formulated  by  Reason. 
As  one  enters  Saint  Peter's,  one  feels  no  incli- 
nation to  kneel  and  pray,  as  one  does  in  Milan 
Cathedral,  or  as  here,  in  this  ruined  Gothic 
Abbey,  but  rather  to  look  round,  to  think,  and 
to  criticise." 

"All  that  you  have  been  saying,"  observed 
the  Poet,  "  seems  to  me  to  be  true.  But,  to 
answer  Veronica's  question,  an  institution  whose 
earlier  Churches  were  designed  by  the  nameless 
but  emulous  architects  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  later  on  by  Brunelleschi  and  Michelangelo, 
that  has  had  Fra  Angelico,  Masaccio,  and 
Raphael  as  its  painters,  Dante  and  Ariosto  as 
its  poets,  and  Palestrina,  Mozart,  and  Beetho- 


90  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT  PEACE 

ven  as  its  musicians,  to  say  nothing  of  a  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  a  Pascal  for  its  expositors,  has  as 
good  a  chance  of  permanence  as  —  I  hope  I 
wound  no  one  present,  or,  indeed,  absent,  by 
the  phrase,  —  anything  human." 

"  Ought  not  some  one,"  said  Lamia,  as  we 
rose  to  our  feet,  "  to  say  Grace  after  a  meal  in 
this  Refectory?" 

"  Say  it,  then,  Lamia,"  said  Veronica. 

Lamia  bowed  her  head  with  deep  reverence 
and  at  once  obeyed,  but  in  a  tremulous  voice : 

"  For  these,  and  all  His  other  mercies, 
above  all  for  the  crowning  mercy  of  serious 
conversation,  God's  name  be  praised  !  " 

Although  we  had  already  lingered  long,  we 
were  not  easily  moved  to  leave  a  spot  itself  so 
retaining,  and  made  yet  more  engaging  by  the 
accidental  addition  to  our  company ;  and  he, 
moreover,  seemed  forgetful  of  his  original 
reason  for  being  there.  Several  times  we  rose 
and  moved  on;  then  we  would  rest  again  on 
broken  column  or  jutting  foundation,  allowing 
question  and  reflection,  arising  from  our  sur- 
roundings, to  pass  from  reflection  to  question 
again,  with  continuous  discursiveness.  When 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  91 

Veronica,  as  willing  a  prisoner  as  the  rest,  but 
with  her  more  practical  temper,  at  length  ob- 
served it  was  very  sad,  but  we  must  go  on  our 
way,  if  we  were  to  be  as  good  as  our  word,  and 
reach  our  promised  bourne  in  anything  like  time 
that  evening,  the  painter  took  courage  to  say 
what  I  could  see  he  had  awhile  been  medi- 
tating. 

"  Very  sad  indeed.  But  might  I  ask,  as  a 
favour,  since  we  had  no  one  to  read  to  us  at 
luncheon  the  life  and  legends  of  some  Benedic- 
tine Saint,  that  I  might  hear  a  short  recitation, 
at  least,  a  little  more  modern  ?  " 

What  he  wished  for  was  transparent  enough  ; 
and  Veronica,  anxious  to  please  him,  gave  the 
answer : 

"  I  should  like  to  have  your  opinion  on  a 
point  we  were  discussing  the  other  day,  as  to 
whether  the  English  or  the  Italian  form  is, 
in  our  tongue  at  least,  the  better  suited  to  the 
Sonnet." 

"  I  will  express  it  for  what  it  is  worth,  if  I 
may  hear  an  example  of  each  kind." 

We  all  looked  towards  the  Poet,  who  said : 

"  Then  recite,  Lamia,  if  you  can  remember 


92  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

one,  a  Sonnet  written   in    the    more    English 
form." 

This  Lamia  did  at  once. 

"  When  'n  the  long-drawn  avenues  of  Thought 
I  halt,  and  look  before  me  and  behind, 
And  seek  what  once  I  all  too  little  sought, 
Some  spot  secure  of  rest,  I  do  not  find. 
Retrace  my  steps  I  dare  not,  lest  each  nook 
I  late  rejected  should  reject  me  now, 
And  leafy  arbours,  restlessly  forsook, 
No  more  be  prone  their  shelter  to  allow. 
So  to  the  untrod  distance  do  I  strain, 
Which  seemeth  ever  further  to  extend, 
Desiring  oft  with  irritable  pain 
Resolving  death  would  bring  that  settled  End, 
When  I  shall  know  it  all,  or  else  forget 
This  far  too  little,  which  for  more  doth  fret." 

"  That  sounds  almost  like  an  Elizabethan 
Sonnet." 

"  I  suppose  so,"  said  the  Poet.  "Yet  it  was 
written  in  what  may  be  called  our  own  time, 
though  some  years  ago." 

"  And  now  for  a  Sonnet  in  Italian  form." 

Whereupon  the  poet  himself  recited  : 

"  Alone  we  come  into  the  world,  alone, 
Alone  we  leave  it,  and  in  vain  we  sigh 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  93 

With  breath  unsatisfied,  we  pray,  we  cry, 
For  Something,  not  ourselves,  to  call  our  own. 
Nor  for  more  close  communion  maketh  moan 
The  fireless  hearth  or  homeless  passer-by, 
But  adulated  Monarchs  pinnacled  high, 
And  Genius  exiled  to  its  mountain  throne. 
Wherefore  it  is  that,  stumbling  toward  the  goal 
Of  equitable  death,  we  all  implore 
To  be,  at  length,  beyond  life's  misty  shore, 
Made  one  with  God,  the  Infinite,  the  Whole, 
And,  by  selPs  galling  fetter  bound  no  more, 
Cast  off  this  dreary  solitude  of  Soul." 

"As  I  listened,"  replied  the  artist,  "the  one 
seemed  as  natural,  though  not  quite  as  native, 
so  to  speak,  as  the  other.  But  I  hope  I  shall 
be  forgiven  if  I  say  that  two  sonnets  do  not 
quite  satisfy  my  craving  for  a  monastic  recita- 
tion." 

Thus  pointedly  appealed  to,  the  Poet  recited 
the  following  lines : 

THE   CLOISTERED   HEART 
i 

IN  days  more  male  and  stern  than  these, 
When  strength  struck  swift  to  overawe 

The  bandit  passions,  and  decrees 

Writ  by  the  sword  had  force  of  Law, 


94 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

The  uncontending  souls  that  dream 
Of  heavenly  peace,  and  strife  appals, 

Found  refuge  here  by  woodland  stream 

And  sheltering  hill,  and  reared  these  walls. 

ii 
Here  too  the  disenchanted  heart, 

And  dupes  of  trusting  love  betrayed, 
Sought  sacred  balsam  for  the  smart, 

Fasted  and  pondered,  wept  and  prayed. 
And,  every  noon  around  the  gate, 

The  sick,  the  blind,  the  halt,  the  maimed, 
Came  with  a  tale  as  sad  as  Fate, 

And  found  and  clutched  the  help  they  claimed. 

in 

The  gates  are  gone,  and  gone  the  dole, 

The  questioning  cowl,  the  sandalled  tread  ; 
In  choir  no  more,  in  alb  and  stole, 

Are  vespers  sung,  or  matins  said. 
But,  though  nor  line  nor  slab  recalls 

Where  the  ascetic  brothers  lie, 
Lingers  round  vanished  cells  and  stalls 

The  breath  of  claustral  sanctity. 

rv 

But  wiser,  happier,  holier  they, 

Who,  undismayed,  confront  the  strife, 

Fly  not,  poor  weaklings,  from  the  fray, 

But  share,  then  staunch,  the  wounds  of  life ; 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  95 

Maintain,  amid  their  madding  kind, 

Too  human  far  to  dwell  apart, 
The  calm  of  a  monastic  mind, 

The  quiet  of  a  cloistered  heart. 


It  looked  an  ideal  Village,  ideal  in  its  position, 
ideal  in  the  architecture  of  its  cottages,  ideal 
in  its  blacksmith's  forge,  its  baker's  shop,  its 
mixed  grocery  and  hardware  store,  the  simple 
but  tastefully  set  forth  window-fronts  of  its  one 
drapery  establishment,  in  its  union  of  saddlery 
and  fishing  tackle  under  one  roof,  its  domestic, 
sober-visaged,  un-noisy,  clean-painted,  modestly 
curtained  Inn,  its  leafy,  retiring  Vicarage,  its 
Church,  whose  aspect  seemed  as  contemplative 
as  time-sanctioned,  and  its  comely,  substantial, 
Voluntary  School,  which,  like  the  larger  but  still 
comparatively  small  houses  and  humble  cot- 
tages, had  its  own  garden  of  brilliant  Autumn 
flowers.  High  above  the  Village,  but  not  sepa- 
rated from  it,  was  what  is  still  denominated 
the  Castle,  though  about  it  there  was  nothing 
of  the  feudal  fortress,  save  a  certain  look  of 
quiet  determination  to  resist  all  that  is  worst  in 
the  Present,  and  to  retain  all  that  was  best  in 


96  HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

the  Past.  It  bears  the  name  of  a  local  and 
perhaps  legendary  Saint,  though  many  genera- 
tions of  holiness  have  fortified  the  claim  that 
resides  in  its  appellation.  A  long  flight  of 
well-worn  brick  steps  led  from  the  Village  to 
a  gate  that  evidently  gave  access  to  the  house  ; 
but,  swerving  suddenly  to  the  right,  we  ascended 
a  steep  hill  on  one  side  of  which  was  one  of  the 
boundary  walls  of  the  Castle,  at  the  summit 
turned  leftward,  and  then,  driving  under  a  late 
sixteenth-century  gateway,  saw  before  us  a 
house  of  the  same  date.  At  its  main  entrance 
was  standing  a  figure  in  the  very  midsummer 
of  womanhood,  whom  no  one  could  possibly 
have  taken  for  being  of  any  race  but  our  own, 
or  as  belonging  to  any  class  save  that  whose 
note  is  distinction  of  aspect  and  manner.  At 
her  side  were  three  children,  two  boys  and  a  girl, 
the  eldest  of  whom  might  be  eleven,  and  the 
youngest  five  or  six.  A  moment  more,  and 
her  words  of  welcome  assured  one  that  she  pos- 
sessed the  further  grace  of  a  captivating  voice. 
Her  clear  and  distinct  enunciation,  in  which 
every  vowel  was  given  its  proper  value,  and 
every  consonant  its  full  sound,  at  once  told  the 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE  97 

sensitive  ear  that  she  was  as  familiar  with  the 
Italian  tongue  as  with  her  own,  and  reminded 
me  that,  as  I  had  previously  heard,  she  had 
passed  much  of  her  early  girlhood  in  the  Eternal 
City,  where  her  Father  had  served  the  State  as 
Representative  of  the  British  Crown.  There 
was  something  of  the  sweet  south  likewise  in 
the  unconscious  languor  that,  when  not  ani- 
mated by  enthusiasm,  humour,  or  exercise, 
seemed  natural  to  her  slender  figure  and  grace- 
fully poised  head,  which  was  crowned  with  an 
aureole  of  auburn-streaked  hair.  Looking  on 
and  listening  to  her,  I  could  not  help  silently 
repeating  to  myself: 

Her  presence  was  soft  music.      When  she  went 
She  left  behind  a  dreamy  discontent 
As  sad  as  silence  when  a  song  is  spent. 

Her  children  had  the  same  refinement  of 
manner  as  herself;  exhibiting  towards  us  all, 
even  to  Lamia  notwithstanding  the  youthful 
freshness  of  her  years,  but  more  markedly  to 
Veronica,  the  Poet,  and  myself,  a  deference  of 
greeting  and  demeanour,  that  struck  me  as  a 
fine  example  of  the  bonos  mores  et  decus  omne 


98  HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

Horace  prayed  the  Gods  to  bestow  on  the  youth 
of  Rome.  As  we  moved  on  through  hall  to 
gallery,  our  Hostess  inquiring  with  genuine  in- 
terest of  Veronica  and  the  Poet,  both  of  whom 
were  acquaintances  of  some  years'  standing,  con- 
cerning our  journey  and  where  we  had  made 
our  mid-day  halt,  one  could  not  help  observing 
that  the  sixteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  had 
been  led  to  harmonise  with  each  other  in  the 
friendliest  manner.  I  hardly  think  I  am  a 
searcher  for  casual  discords  in  places,  people, 
or  dwellings,  for  the  most  part  beautiful  and 
melodious,  since  I  was  long  ago  fraternally 
warned  by  the  Poet  against  being  such.  But  'I 
doubt  if  the  most  assiduous  fault-seeker  could 
here  have  found  material  for  censoriousness  or 
untimely  fastidiousness.  To  homes  pervaded 
by  charm,  as  to  works  of  Art  that  approach 
perfection,  the  more  happily  constituted  minds 
say  "  Yes,"  without  any  qualification.  The 
proper  homage  due  to  them  is  absolute  assent. 
"  I  hope  you  will  not  mind,"  she  said,  "  there 
being  in  the  grounds  to-day  a  number  of  people, 
our  tenants  and  neighbours,  and  very  quiet  ones. 
They  have  been  here  all  the  afternoon,  have 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  99 

just  finished  tea,  and  will  shortly  be  leaving. 
It  is  the  annual  gathering  of  the  local  branch 
of  the  Red-and-White  Rose  Society,  which, 
because  of  a  strictly  non-party  character,  as  no 
doubt  you  know,  has  done  so  much,  don't  you 
think  ?  towards  elevating  the  social  and  moral 
ideals,  and  softening  the  animosities,  of  the 
time.  But,  before  they  go,  they  will  look  for 
a  few  words  of  welcome ;  and,  as  my  husband 
is  on  a  Parliamentary  Committee,  and  cannot  be 
home  till  rather  late,  for  which  you  must  for- 
give him,  my  boy  here,  who,  I  hope,  will  some 
day  make  more  important  speeches  in  another 
place,  has  to  act  for  his  father,  and  for  once 

play   the    grown-up    man    a    little    before    his 

^'       » 
time. 

I  do  not  think  I  ever  saw  another  so  pretty 
or  so  English  a  scene  as  that  of  which  we 
shortly  were  partakers.  Passing  into  the  ter- 
raced garden-front  of  the  house,  we  found  one 
of  those  gatherings  of  respectably,  but  un- 
showily  dressed  provincial  people,  deeply  but 
quietly  animated,  enjoying  themselves  without 
noise  but  with  much  earnestness,  having  come 
there  for  that  purpose,  and  likewise  to  do  what 


ioo          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

they  thought  they  ought  to  do.  Seeing  our 
Hostess  and  her  children  once  again,  for  these 
had  passed  most  of  the  afternoon  outside  talk- 
ing in  turn  with  every  one,  they  at  once  sur- 
mised that  the  hour  for  leaving  was  approaching  ; 
and  so  they  clustered  round  the  chief  flight  of 
terrace  steps,  from  the  top  of  which  they  knew, 
from  long-repeated  precedent,  they  would,  in  a 
few  friendly  words,  be  collectively  addressed. 
The  Mother  stood  at  the  side  of  this  boy  of 
eleven,  with  her  hand  placed  affectionately  on 
his  shoulder ;  while,  with  a  union  of  modesty 
and  self-possession,  he  apologised  for  the  ab- 
sence of  his  Father,  and  then  delivered  in  a 
clear,  deliberate  voice  the  brief  words  which  he 
explained  he  had  been  told  to  say  to  them.  A 
Bossuet  or  a  Fenelon  could  not  have  been  more 
attentively  listened  to ;  and  it  was  not  till  he 
ended,  and  his  little  speech  was  enthusiastically 
cheered,  that  a  slight  blush  came  over  his 
cheeks,  and  a  tremor  over  his  manner,  and  he 
seemed  to  turn  and  cling  to  his  Mother,  as 
though  to  ask  what  he  ought  to  do  next.  But 
there  was  nothing  more  for  him  or  anybody  to 
do  ;  for  the  gathering  at  once  dispersed  and  dis- 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  101 

appeared,  after  thanking  his  Mother,  and  saying 
how  much  they  had  enjoyed  themselves ;  to 
which  the  response,  in  tactfully  varied  words 
was,  "  Come  again,  next  year,  or  at  any  time. 
You  know  we  are  always  delighted  to  see  you." 
Rather  late  that  evening  our  Host  arrived, 
having  travelled  fast  and  far  to  be  in  his  home 
till  his  services  were  again  required  by  the  State. 
These  were  of  no  official  character ;  he  being  too 
modest  and  un-self-seeking  to  be,  as  yet  at  least, 
despite  the  esteem  in  which  he  is  universally 
held,  offered  participation  in  duties  that  are 
most  honourable  and  eagerly  coveted,  and  that 
will,  no  doubt,  in  due  course  fall  to  his  lot.  It 
is  the  self-imposed,  unostentatious,  but  service- 
able duties  that  are  mostly  his,  and  the  best  one 
can  say  of  him  is  that  he  is  a  model  citizen. 
He  is  lineally  descended  from  one  of  the  chief 
founders,  in  days  gone  by,  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago,  of  the  British  Empire.  He  is  a 
pattern  of  courtesy  to  the  whole  world ;  but 
under  his  gentleness  of  manner  lurks  a  strong 
character  and  beats  with  equable  pulse  a  mascu- 
line decision.  He  and  his  seek  for  no  popu- 
larity, either  at  Court,  in  Senate,  Society,  or 


loi          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Market-place  ;  neither  could  be  applied  to  them 
the  epigrammatic  gibe  of  Gibbon  that  offices 
which  would  have  been  disdained  by  the  mean- 
est of  Roman  freemen  are  eagerly  coveted  by 
some  of  the  proudest  nobles  of  Britain.  They 
move  with  equal  readiness  among  all  classes 
where  they  can  be  of  use,  save  that  portion  of 
what  is  more  especially  their  own  class  who 
demean  their  Order  by  personal  luxuriousness, 
vulgar  display,  or  unceasing  levity. 

Not  long  after  his  arrival,  the  hour  being 
late,  we  retired  for  the  night,  but  not  before 
paying  a  visit  to  the  Chapel,  where  the  domes- 
tics of  the  household  were  already  gathered. 
After  the  reading  of  Evening  Prayer,  his  wife 
played  a  Voluntary  on  the  organ,  and,  at  Lamia's 
request,  and  to  the  delight  of  us  all,  continued 
to  play :  nothing  elaborate,  only  the  simplest 
of  semi-sacred  airs,  which  brought  back  to  one's 
mind  the  remark  of  a  French  writer,  that,  were 
the  angels  of  Raphael  to  sing,  they  would  sing 
the  melodies  of  Mozart. 

To  such  congenial  society  and  so  congenial 
a  spot,  whose  quiet  stateliness  was  combined 
with  that  inexplicable  charm  one  rarely  feels 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          103 

in  human  habitations  that  have  more  than  a  cer- 
tain modest  size,  none  of  us  were  eager  to  bid 
farewell ;  and  it  was  made  plain  to  us,  beyond 
possibility  of  misgiving,  that  there  existed 
an  equal  wish  on  the  part  of  our  kind  entertain- 
ers that  we  should  be  in  no  hurry  to  depart. 

Nothing  can  be  thoroughly  enjoyed  that  is 
gone  through  quickly  and  feverishly.  Excite- 
ment, and  what  is  called  an  intense  sensation, 
may  be  caused  by  it ;  but  it  is  not  thus  that 
the  best,  noblest,  and  more  pleasurable  pleas- 
ures are  to  be  tasted.  That  is  why  some  of  us 
think  that  people  in  the  present  age,  though 
so  ardent  in  the  pursuit  of  enjoyment,  do  not 
really  enjoy  themselves  as  much  as  men  and 
women  did  who  lived  in  days  of  more  deliber- 
ateness,  or  indeed  as  the  wise  minority  who, 
even  now,  move  at  a  leisurely  pace  of  their 
own.  They  see  less,  they  feel  less,  they  re- 
member less.  The  mere  cursory  visiting  of 
the  Castle,  its  terraces,  its  fish-ponds,  its  gar- 
den, here  formal,  there  wild,  its  old  walls  and 
borders  that  early  Autumn  befits  so  well,  its 
orchard,  its  Church  that  was  so  near  the  Castle 
it  seemed  to  form  a  local  union  with  the  State, 


io4 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 


was  enough  for  the  greater  part  of  one  day ; 
and,  when  one  has  seen  what  enchants  one's 
gaze,  and  engages  one's  heart,  one  wants  to 
see  it  all  over  again,  to  dwell  with  it  awhile, 
and  to  carry  it  away  in  one's  memory  of  mem- 
ory. The  weather  continued  to  obey  Lamia's 
original  good  pleasure,  as  when  we  started  on 
our  wanderings ;  and  the  Harvest  Moon,  now 
at  full,  prolonged  the  twilight,  and  retarded, 
while  it  glorified,  the  night.  Lamia,  who  aban- 
doned her  more  playful  outbursts  without  abat- 
ing her  bright  cheerfulness,  was,  I  could  see, 
much  appreciated  by  our  Host  and  Hostess, 
and  likewise  by  their  children,  with  whom  she 
spent  not  a  few  of  the  passing  hours.  But  she 
usually  was  with  us  when  we  sate  of  a  forenoon 
under  the  walnut  trees  in  what  was  called 
"  Guinivere's  Orchard,"  and  always  when  at 
the  top  of  the  main  terrace-steps,  where  the 
words  of  the  young  orator  had  been  delivered, 
we  had  our  coffee,  and  conversed  in  the  moon- 
light. In  the  course  of  the  morning  some  one 
read  aloud  sufficiently  long  to  lead  to  spon- 
taneous and  undetermining  talks,  those  wisest 
of  all  forms  of  conversation.  One  of  these, 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          105 

that  arose  naturally  out  of  the  volume  Ver- 
onica happened  to  be  reading,  was  the  inquiry 
whether  young  girls  are  better,  or  worse,  for 
the  relaxation  of  restraint  that  has  taken  place 
in  their  education,  discipline,  and  conduct.  I 
noticed  that,  while  our  Hostess  nearly  always 
endeavoured,  though  with  the  most  delicate  tact, 
to  entice  the  Poet  into  telling  us  what  he  thought 
on  whatever  subject  was  uppermost,  he  who,  as 
I  have  heard  Veronica  say,  is  so  slow  to  per- 
ceive his  opinion  is  worth  listening  to,  was 
equally  anxious  that  our  Host  and  Hostess 
should  tell  us  what  they  thought.  But,  on 
the  present  occasion,  he  was  prompt  to  re- 
mark :  "  I  can  only  say,  for  my  part,  they  are 
more  attractive  and  agreeable  than  they  dared 
to  be  in  my  youth.  In  that  respect,  as  per- 
haps in  others,  some  of  us  had  the  misfortune 
to  be  born  too  early." 

"  I  suspect,"  said  our  Hostess,  "  you  have 
had  the  happiness  to  enjoy  both  periods,  and 
that,  if  a  third  were  to  supervene,  you  would 
enjoy  that  likewise,  it  being  the  special  gift 
of  certain  fortunate  people  to  appreciate  all 
that  is  precious." 


106          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  I  need  scarcely  tell  you,"  interposed  Lamia, 
"  there  is  one  of  them  that  is  not  appreciated 
by  Veronica  and  myself.  We  are  only  his 
valets,  and  therefore  cannot  do  so." 

"  You  are  very  ingenious,  dear  Lamia,"  said 
Veronica,  "  in  your  attempt  to  divert  the  con- 
versation into  another  but  much  less  interesting 
channel.  Allow  me  to  recall  to  you  that  we 
were  talking  of  young  women,  and  especially 
of  the  young  women  of  to-day." 

"  Concerning  whom,"  said  our  Host,  "  our 
guest  made  a  very  flattering  observation,  if  it 
involved  one  a  little  humiliating  to  my  wife, 
and  his  own." 

"  He  was  speaking,  as  I  understood  him," 
said  Veronica,  "  of  young  women  generally, 
with  whom,  though  imperfectly  informed  by 
him  on  the  subject,  I  suspect  it  may  safely 
be  surmised  he  has  had  a  reasonably  large 
acquaintance." 

"  Really,  I  must  come  to  his  rescue,"  said 
our  Hostess,  "  for  there  seems  a  conspiracy, 
this  morning,  to  make  our  discussions  a  little  too 
rambling.  Let  us  return  to  the  theme  of  our 
young  lambs,  the  maidens  of  to-day." 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          107 

"  If  a  lamb,"  said  Lamia,  "  not  so  very,  very 
young,  may  venture  to  offer  an  opinion,  would 
it  not  turn  out,  after  what  our  scientific  investi- 
gators call  a  comprehensive  survey,  that  a  wider 
liberty  has  had  much  the  same  effect  on  young 
women  that  we  are  told  it  has  produced  on  an- 
other inferior  class  of  persons,  the  Black  Races  ? 
It  has  developed  some,  and  intoxicated  others." 

"  A  very  just  distinction,"  said  our  Hostess, 
with  more  gravity  than  had  hitherto  flavoured 
the  subject.  "  If  a  girl  be  a  true  woman,  and  a 
woman  of  the  nobler  sort,  no  amount  of  liberty, 
I  am  disposed  to  think,  can  injure  her.  As 
Milton  so  finely  says,  c  Virtue,'  employing  the 
word  in  its  widest  and  most  generous  sense, 

Virtue  may  be  assailed,  but  never  hurt. 

But  Society,  more  especially  the  Society  of  to- 
day, has  two  great  pitfalls  for  women,  whether 
young  or  not  young.  I  am  afraid  that  Pope, 
who  wrote  some  very  unjust  things  about 
women,  was  correct  when  he  declared  that  we 
are  subject,  and  too  frequently  succumb,  to  two 
sovereign  passions  — 

The  love  of  pleasure,  and  the  love  of  sway. 


io8          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

But  Pleasure,  in  the  sense  in  which  he  was  using 
the  word,  can  never  satisfy  any  save  very  frivo- 
lous natures,  woman's  nature  more  particularly  ; 
and,  though  to  dominate  may  wholly  content 
the  ambition  of  some  men,  domination,  if  ob- 
tained by  women,  makes  them  even  less  happy 
than  I  think  they  were  intended  to  be." 

The  silence  that  for  a  moment  ensued  seemed 
to  signify  general  assent.  Veronica  was  the 
first  to  break  it. 

"  I  have  rarely  heard  anything  more  true. 
Unfortunately  there  are  a  certain  number  of 
women,  but  I  do  not  think  they  are  peculiar  to 
this  age,  women  with  what  are  called  strong  char- 
acters, who  cannot  help  desiring  to  dominate." 

"  Doubtless  that  is  so,"  said  our  Hostess ; 
"  and  they  are  greatly  to  be  pitied  ;  for,  whether 
they  be  allowed  to  dominate  or  are  resisted  in 
their  desire  to  do  so,  they  are  equally  dissatis- 
fied. Just  as  there  are  men  who  are  not  quite 
men,  and  whom  one  regards  as  unmanly,  so  are 
there  women  not  quite  women,  and  whom  one 
feels  to  be,  to  a  certain  extent  and  in  a  certain 
sense,  unfeminine." 

"Yes,"   said   her   husband;    "but,   in   both 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  109 

cases  alike,  they  are  few.  To  guard  against 
this  tare  in  our  own  little  crop  we  have  had 
printed,  illuminated,  and  framed,  as  a  birthday 
present  for  our  girl  when  she  is  a  little  older, 
the  concluding  speech  of  Katharine  in  'The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew  ^  and  my  wife  has  a  num- 
ber of  copies,  which  she  says  she  herself  in- 
tends to  give,  apart  from  our  joint  wedding 
present,  to  the  young  ladies  of  our  acquaint- 
ance on  the  eve  of  their  marriage,  to  whom  it 
is  likely  to  be  useful." 

"  May  /  have  one  ?  "  said  Lamia. 

"Are  you  going  to  be  married  ?"  he  asked. 
"  I  hope,  in  the  general  interest,  it  is  at  least 
not  going  to  take  place  very  soon." 

"  Alas  !  no,"  said  Lamia.  "  Not  to  dwell 
on  the  circumstance  that  I  have  not  yet  been 
invited  to  do  so,  naturally  I  am  reluctant  to 
give  up  to  a  party  what,  as  you  observe,  was 
meant  for  mankind.  Still,  I  should  be  glad  to 
possess  a  copy ;  for  if,  in  the  event  of  my  ever 
overcoming  that  reluctance,  I  were  tactfully  to 
parade  my  approval  of  it,  it  might  procure  for 
me  that  invitation  which  may  otherwise  be  with- 
held. After  all,  women,  whether  better  or  worse, 


no          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

are  still  a  necessary  evil,  if  only  because  of  the 
wiles  I  am  told  they  employ  to  cheer  men  in 
their  moments  of  discouragement  and  continual 
self-depreciation." 

"  An  evil,"  observed  our  Host,  "  of  which 
some  of  us  are  disposed  to  say,  c  Evil,  be  thou 
my  Good  ! '  " 

"  And  yet,"  said  Lamia,  "  I  am  told  we  are 
not  infrequently  spoken  of,  in  private  male 
society,  as  a  —  ahem  —  nuisance !  I  wonder 
if  we  deserve  the  ill-natured  things  that  have, 
during  all  time,  been  spoken  and  written  of 
us  by  men  ?  " 

"  I  suppose,"  said  the  Poet,  "  some  of  it  is 
deserved,  but  much  of  it  is  not.  In  one 
supreme  respect,  women  certainly  show  their 
superiority  to  their  maligners." 

"  How  do  they  do  that  ?  "  asked  our  Hostess. 

"  Men,"  he  replied,  "  too  often  get,  and  for- 
get. Women  give,  and  forgive." 

"Hark!"  said  our  Host.  "There  is  the 
luncheon-bell." 

The  children  came  rushing  out  of  the  house 
towards  us,  and  Lamia  ran  forward  to  meet 
them. 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          m( 

"What  think  you,"  asked  the  Poet,  "of 
Lamia  ? " 

"  She  is  dear,"  answered  our  Host. 

"  She  is  so  nice,"  added  Veronica,  "  that  it 
will  not  be  easy  to  find  the  man  equally 
so." 

"  Being  the  true  woman,"  subjoined  the 
Poet,  "  that  has  been  so  admirably  described 

for  us  this  morning,  she  is  sure  to  think  him 

»j 

so. 

"Yes,"  I  observed,  I  hope  not  too  pro- 
saically, "as  the  widowed  Florentine  donna  di 
facenda  in  our  Winter-Quarters  said  one  day 
to  Veronica  of  her  deceased  husband,  f  Fu  un 
oracolo  :  He  was  an  oracle  of  wisdom.' ' 

"  She  at  least  was  wise,"  said  our  Hostess, 
"  unless  her  declaration  of  his  infallibility  was 
but  a  posthumous  panegyric." 

But  the  most  delightful  things  end  at  last, 
and  on  the  morrow  we  were  to  leave  this  dig- 
nified and  still  undesecrated  Haunt  of  Ancient 
Peace.  A  certain  foreshadowing  of  the  sadness 
we  should  then  feel  seemed  to  be  on  us  all,  as 
we  sate,  for  the  last  time,  in  the  mellow  Autumn 
moonlight.  There  were  more  pauses  than  usual 


ii2          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

in  our  talk,  more  gravity  perhaps  in  its  tenor. 
Suddenly,  Lamia  exclaimed : 

"Oh,  if  time  would  halt!" 

Our  Hostess  echoed  the  exclamation :  "  If 
it  only  would  !  " 

Then  she  turned  to  the  Poet,  and  said : 

"  This  longing  so  often  recurs,  and  is  so 
widely  felt,  that  surely  you  have,  at  some  time 
or  another,  given  expression  to  it." 

"  I  almost  think  I  have,  though  very  inade- 
quately." 

"  I  wonder  if  you  would  repeat  it  to  us." 

IF  TIME   WOULD   HALT! 


IF  Time  would  halt,  if  Time  would  halt, 
When  wintry  tongues  no  more  assault 
The  heart's  lone  citadel,  and  Spring 
Hastens  with  Love  upon  its  wing, 
And,  irresistible  as  fair, 
Brings  the  long-sighed-for  succour  there  ; 
When  vernal  smile  and  April  song 
Make  palpitating  breasts  to  long 
For  something  beyond  earthly  bliss, 
For  world  more  fair  than  even  this, 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          113 

If  bane  in  rapture  lurk  we  care  not, 
And  sorrow  is  as  though  it  were  not, 
And  only  foresight  makes  default, 
If  Time  would  halt,  if  Time  would  halt ! 


If  Time  would  halt  when  hawthorns  blow 
And  Joy  no  longer  loitereth  slow, 
But,  hastening  onward,  joins  the  train 
Led  captive  by  June's  flowery  chain, 
And  woodbine  nooks,  and  elder  bowers, 
And  wildrose  rambles,  all  are  ours ; 
When  freshly  consecrated  Love, 
Like  time-and-space-forgetting  dove, 
Hour  after  hour  to  one  fixed  bough 
Clings,  still  repeating  self-same  vow 
Till  sunset's  fading  streaks  decay, 
And  twilight  seems  more  sweet  than  day, 
And  the  moon  moves  through  Heaven's  clear  vault 
With  soundless  keel,  —  if  Time  would  halt ! 


If  Time  would  halt,  when,  though  the  days 
Dwindle,  yet  nowise  Love  decays, 
But,  like  ripe  fruit  in  garden  croft, 
Grows  yet  more  mellow,  sweet,  and  soft, 
From  those  actinic  rays  that  bring 
October  peace  to  everything, 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

And  we  would  rather,  grown  more  wise, 
See  restful  than  resplendent  eyes, 
Feeling  that  Autumn's  gaze  serene, 
When  nought  is  left  to  reap  or  glean, 
More  touching  is  to  look  upon 
Than  wavering  Spring  and  Summer  gone, 
And  neither  finds  nor  hints  a  fault,  — 
Then,  even  then,  if  Time  would  halt ! 


Alas  !  Time  never  seems  to  halt, 
Till  sighs  grow  deep,  and  tears  grow  salt, 
Till  fails  the  light  in  living  eyes, 
And  faltering  words  bring  cold  replies. 
Then  hours  that  used  to  fleet  so  fast, 
Appear  to  flag  and  limp  at  last, 
And,  lone,  we  learn  the  day  would  come 
When,  ear  grown  deaf,  and  voice  grown  dumb, 
We  know  not,  in  death's  silent  vault, 
Whether  Time  hurry  by,  or  halt. 

Was  it  fancy  that  made  me  think  I  saw 
tears,  like  to  falling  stars,  gleam  an  instant  in 
the  moonlight,  then  trickle  and  disappear  down 
more  cheeks  than  one  ?  Perhaps  the  Poet  like- 
wise saw  them,  for  his  voice  seemed  suddenly 
to  fail  him. 

"  Oh,  go  on  !  go  on  !  "  said  Veronica. 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          115 

"  Yes,  yes ! "  said  Lamia,  "you  must  not 
halt  there." 

Thus  besought,  in  trembling  tones  he 
continued : 

But  when  nor  wintry  days,  nor  nights 
Shorn  of  young  dreams  and  old  delights, 
Nor  hopes  attained,  nor  dead  desires, 
Can  quench  the  glow  of  household  fires, 
But  Love's  unfailing  lamp  burns  on, 
As  in  the  sacred  seasons  gone, 
And  peace  and  prayer  still  keep  divine 
Love's  uncontaminated  shrine, 
Heavenward  at  even  pace  we  wend, 
Nor  ask  that  Time  would  halt,  or  end  ! 


Ill 


IT  was  an  Inn  after  the  pattern  of  many 
such,  whose  exact  date  it  is  difficult  to  assign ; 
with  wrinkled,  weather-darkened  roof  of  red 
tiles,  yellow-washed  front,  old-fashioned  win- 
dows hung  within  with  spotlessly  white  cur- 
tains, rustic  porch  with  kindly,  considerate 
seats  on  either  hand,  and  over  which  clambered 
autumn-flowering  honeysuckle  and  the  second 
blooms  of  a  Souvenir  de  Malmaison  rose.  It 
wore  an  air  of  tranquil  but  cordial  hospitality, 
and  peaceful  cleanliness.  Gazing  on  it,  as  you 
moored  your  boat  to  its  informal  landing-stage, 
you  felt  sure  you  would  find  a  smiling  face 
within  its  Bar,  a  doing,  Martha-minded  house- 
wife in  the  parlour,  a  hearty,  omniscient 
landlord  somewhere  in  its  precincts,  and  scru- 
pulously clean  bed-rooms  with  comfortable 
pillows,  and  muslin,  lavender-lined  bags  in 
their  chests  of  drawers.  Your  sitting-room,  if 
you  required  one,  which  we  did,  would  be  of 

116 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          117 

like  character;  convenient,  unassuming,  made 
and  furnished  for  daily  wants  and  service,  free 
from  ostentation,  with  a  wall-paper  open  per- 
haps to  fastidious  criticism,  but  neither  affected 
nor  offensive,  and  broken  here  and  there  by  a 
plain-framed  print  either  of  sentimental  or  of 
sporting  character.  Its  weak  point  would  be 
its  writing  materials,  since  the  bulk  of  its  suc- 
cessive occupants  for  many  generations  looked 
on  lengthened  compositions  as  an  incompre- 
hensible waste  of  summer  and  autumn  days. 
Its  garden  would  be  at  the  back,  abounding  in 
rows  of  marrowfat  peas,  runner  beans,  goose- 
berry bushes,  with  "  Early  Prolific,"  and  late 
"Victoria"  plum-trees,  but  not  wanting  withal 
in  rosemary,  and  thyme,  and  maiden's-blush 
roses,  with  here  and  there  a  hollyhock  and 
dahlia,  and  somewhere,  be  quite  sure,  a  foliage- 
roofed  arbour  for  the  abetting  and  concealment 
of  affectionate  discourse.  All  these  things  a 
,  properly  attuned  mind  would  surmise,  in  the 
few  paces  of  rising  slope  between  landing-stage 
and  entrance  ;  and  the  anticipation  would  prove 
in  every  respect  to  be  correct.  I  need  scarcely 
say  that  three  of  our  party,  and,  I  humbly 


n8          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

hope,  the  fourth  likewise,  are  rightly  strung  for 
such  surmises  ;  and,  as  we  were  led  to  the  rooms 
Veronica  had  ordered  in  advance,  the  only 
comments  we  uttered  were  "  Yes,"  "  Just  so," 
"  Exactly  as  we  expected,"  "  Is  it  not  homely 
and  perfect  ? " 

Veronica  was  sitting,  as  presiding  divinity,  at 
the  tea-table,  before  an  urn  that  steamed  and 
bubbled,  but  which  it  may  be  owned  she  would 
not  have  cared  to  add  to  her  well-known  col- 
lection of  that  useful  utensil,  a  nubbly  silver 
teapot,  of  a  design  much  revered  by  our  grand- 
mothers, but  criticised  somewhat  profanely  by 
their  superfine  grandchildren,  and  a  profusion 
of  tea-cakes,  buttered  toast,  bread-and-butter, 
and  Madeira  cake,  provided  with  a  hearty  dis- 
regard of  the  utmost  limits  of  mortal  appetite. 
The  Poet  was  reclining  in  the  easiest  of  easy- 
chairs,  Lamia  was  seated  at  one  of  the  open 
windows,  and  I,  —  well,  it  is  of  no  consequence 
where  I  was.  We  were  the  only  guests,  for  the 
moment,  at  The  Sign  of  the  Swan,  for  it  was  the 
middle  of  the  week.  The  river  flowed  with  calm 
continuous  current  past  our  gaze,  making  just 
enough  music  in  its  onward  journey  to  encour- 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          119 

age  dozing  or  accompany  quiet  thinking.  In 
the  meadow  beyond,  a  plentiful  aftermath  had 
that  morning  been  cut,  and  already  breathed 
the  scent  of  half-made  hay ;  from  a  rookery  at 
its  further  boundary  came  the  sound  of  much 
cawing,  for  in  autumn  the  rooks  seem  to  share 
the  gregarious,  holiday-making,  talkative  dis- 
position of  men  and  women ;  and,  beyond 
again,  was  a  bossy  wood  of  beech-trees,  here 
and  there  showing  premonitory  symptoms  of 
the  brilliant  colouring  with  which  Autumn 
tempers  the  pathos  of  their  decay. 

Shortly,  Lamia  rose  from  her  seat  at  the 
open  window,  and,  passing  from  the  room,  left 
it  so  much  the  poorer  by  withdrawing  from  it  her 
presence.  None  of  us  made  any  observation, 
and  perhaps  I  was  the  only  one  who  noticed  her 
going  ;  for  we  have  not,  I  am  glad  to  say,  that 
tactless  habit,  which  seems  inherent  in  many 
people,  of  participating  overmuch  in  each  other's 
movements.  But  I  knew  full  well  whither  she 
was  bent,  and  that  she  would  not  return  for 
some  time  ;  for,  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon, 
she  had  confided  to  me,  in  the  off-hand  way  she 
often  has  with  me,  the  nature  of  her  intentions. 


izo          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  I  am  so  glad,"  she  had  said,  "  we  are  going 
to  pass  the  night  where  we  shall ;  for,  within  an 
easy  stroll  of  it,  lives  so-and-so,"  —  naming  a 
man  of  letters  known  to  most  people  by  name, 
not  infrequently  belittled,  I  am  told,  though  I 
am  but  imperfectly  informed  on  such  matters, 
by  writers  of  notices  and  casual  paragraphs,  for 
reasons  best  known  to  themselves,  but,  in  any 
case,  without  result,  for  he  is  estimated  quite 
differently,  and  with  much  generous  apprecia- 
tion, by  disinterested  and  competent  judges, — 
"  and,"  continued  Lamia, "  I  wish  to  make  his 
acquaintance ! " 

"  And  how  are  you  going  to  manage  that  ?  " 
I  inquired.  "  I  have  always  understood  he  is 
somewhat  difficult  of  access.  Have  you  pro- 
vided yourself  with  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion ? " 

"  Now,"  she  answered,  "  can  you  imagine  me 
doing  anything  so  useless  ?  If  I  did,  I  should 
richly  deserve  to  be  told  that  he  is  not  at  home, 
and  to  have  my  walk  for  my  pains.  I  am  my 
own  introducer.  I  shall  go  to  his  cottage,  and, 
if  he  be  at  home,  shall  see  him  as  a  matter  of 
course." 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          121 

"  Is  not  that  rather  a  peculiar  proceeding  ?  " 
I  asked. 

"  I  wish  you  to  understand,"  she  answered, 
in  a  rather  magnificent  manner,  assumed  evi- 
dently for  the  occasion,  and  in  order  to  put  me 
in  my  proper  place,  "  that  I  am  peculiar,  or  at 
least  that  I  am  so,  when  I  wish  to  be." 

"But  what,"  I  ventured  to  observe,  " will 
Veronica  think  ? " 

"You  know  perfectly  well,"  was  the  reply, 
"  I  do  not  care  in  the  least  what  anybody  thinks, 
always  excepting  the  Poet,  and  he  is  certain  to 
think  exactly  what  I  think,  being  my  nearest 
of  kin,  and  from  whom  indeed  I  myself  have 
learnt  to  what  you  call  think." 

"  But  what  will  Veronica  say  ?  "   I  urged. 

"  She  would  say  many  things,  which  would 
sound,  and  indeed  be,  perfectly  true,  if  my 
praiseworthy  efforts  failed.  But,  as  they  will 
not  fail,  and  she  will  know  nothing  of  them 
till  they  have  succeeded,  she  will  say  nothing." 

I  daresay  it  will  have  been  observed  that  I 
never  engage  in  a  controversy,  however  trivial, 
with  Lamia,  but  I  get  worsted  ;  and  I  felt  there 
was  no  more  to  be  said  on  the  subject.  A  little 


122          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

later  we  sallied  out  to  explore,  —  Veronica,  the 
village  street  to  see  if  by  chance  there  was  a 
stray  urn  or  two,  or  some  equally  useless  but 
no  doubt  interesting  curio,  to  be  picked  up  in 
a  medley  of  old  furniture,  prints,  books,  clock- 
faces,  and  the  rest,  dignified  with  the  appropri- 
ate name  of  a  curiosity  shop  ;  the  Poet,  to 
exhibit,  possibly  to  feel,  an  interest  in  what- 
ever he  was  shown  ;  and  I,  indifferent  in  which 
direction  we  went,  since  Lamia  had  gone  in 
another.  A  casual  inquiry  was  made  as  to 
where  Lamia  was  ;  but,  as  none  of  us  seemed 
to  know,  it  was  not  pursued,  and  no  astonish- 
ment was  expressed,  since  none  was  felt,  at  her 
disappearance.  But,  just  as  we  returned  to  the 
Inn,  well  content  with  our  walk,  since  we  had 
satisfied  ourselves  that  the  country  around 
was  worthy  of  the  beautiful  river  that  flowed 
through  it,  a  rustic  messenger,  unmistakably 
a  gardener  of  the  old-world  kind,  rose  from 
the  bench  by  the  side  of  the  porch,  and  handed 
Veronica  two  notes,  one,  I  could  see,  from 
Lamia,  the  other  in  a  hand  unknown  to  me. 
Veronica  read  them  aloud ;  and,  while  the  first 
only  referred  her  to  the  second,  the  latter  con- 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          123 

tained  a  pressing  invitation  to  supper,  which 
the  writer  hoped  would  be  accepted  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  more  conventional  meal  of  dinner, 
and  adding  that  the  writer  had  retained  Lamia 
as  a  hostage  for  our  compliance  with  the  request. 

"  I  suppose  we  must  go,"  said  Veronica,  "  if 
only  to  give  countenance  to  Lamia's  remark- 
able conduct." 

"I  trust,"  said  the  Poet,  "we  shall  find,  at 
the  end  of  the  evening,  we  have  had  a  yet  bet- 
ter justification  for  accepting,  since  I  have  fre- 
quently heard  that  her  detainer  is,  on  occasions, 
a  genial  and  diverting  talker." 

"  I  must  first  change  my  hat,  and  get  some 
cleaner  gloves,"  said  Veronica,  "  but  will  be 
with  you  directly." 

"  Remember,  he  is  only  a  bachelor,"  I  ob- 
served, trusting  thereby  to  make  Veronica's 
"  change  of  hat  and  gloves  "  as  brief  as  possi- 
ble, but  immediately  repented  of  the  observa- 
tion, since  it  was  calculated,  if  duly  weighed,  to 
bring  into  yet  sharper  relief  the  enormity  of 
Lamia's  behaviour.  Happily,  in  the  hurry  of 
the  moment,  that  inference  was  not  drawn. 
We  had  already  ordered  dinner ;  but,  when  we 


124          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

explained  what  had  occurred,  the  Martha- 
minded  landlady  displayed  all  the  virtues  of 
Mary,  said  it  did  not  matter  in  the  least,  and 
that  she  had  provided  nothing  for  us  that 
would  not  serve  equally  well  for  luncheon  on 
the  morrow. 

Preceded  by  the  rustic  gardener,  we  reached, 
in  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  the  foot  of  a 
noticeably  steep  hillside,  bare  for  the  most  part 
save  of  here  and  there  some  yellow-flowering 
broom,  casual  patches  of  heather,  and,  at  its 
summit,  a  line  of  larches  and  Scotch  pines.  A 
little  way  up  a  sandy  path,  there  seemed  to  be 
a  cottage  and  garden  ;  but  the  first  was  so  cur- 
tained by  the  trees  and  shrubs  of  the  second, 
that  its  existence  could  as  yet  rather  be  surmised 
than  seen.  Our  guide,  stopping  at  a  wicket 
gate,  opened  it  for  us  to  pass  through,  and, 
after  a  few  paces,  we  observed  a  straight  garden 
avenue  lined  with  white  phloxes  and  bright  pink 
hollyhocks,  both  in  full  bloom,  and  towards 
the  further  end,  with  their  backs  to  us,  Lamia, 
with  her  usual  erect  but  pliant  carriage,  and 
a  male  figure,  whose  slightly  bending  back 
suggested  the  sunset  side  of  life.  They  were 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          125 

evidently  deep  in  talk  interesting  to  both. 
Reaching  the  extreme  end  of  the  hollyhock 
path,  they  turned,  and  at  once  perceived  us ; 
and,  with  brisk  step  and  outstretched  hand,  the 
host,  who  was  no  stranger  to  us  by  name,  and 
who  had  written  the  note  of  cordial  invitation 
to  Veronica,  hastened  toward  us. 

"  How  good  of  you  to  come ! "  he  said. 
"  But  this  dear  young  lady  "  —  Lamia  was  still 
walking  leisurely  at  some  distance  behind  him, 
smelling  an  autumn  rose  that  had  evidently  just 
been  given  her,  and  looking  on  at  the  exchanged 
greetings  with  a  half-amused,  half-complacent 
smile,  —  "this  dear  young  lady,  with  whom  I 
am  already  on  a  footing  of  friendliness,  assured 
me  I  might  take  with  you  what  persons  of 
narrower  understanding  would  perhaps  have 
regarded  as  a  liberty  and  a  grave  offence  against 
social  observances.  It  is  a  great,  very  great 
pleasure  to  see  you,  and  "  —  grasping  the  Poet 
warmly  by  the  hand  —  "I  have  long  wished 
we  could  meet,  though  I  did  not  see  how  it 
was  to  be  brought  about  save  by  some  happy 
accident.  Had  I  known  of  the  existence  of 
this  tactful  ambassadress,  I  should  not  have 


ii6          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

been  deprived  so  long  of  the  attainment  of 
my  desire." 

Greeting  more  calculated  to  justify  Lamia, 
and  to  disarm  Veronica,  could  not  well  have 
been  conceived,  and  it  made  us  all  alike  feel  at 
home  forthwith  in  this  haunt  of  ancient  peace. 
Accordingly  we  strolled  about  the  garden  as 
we  would  ;  and,  as  the  attention  of  our  host 
was  now  mainly  turned  to  Veronica  and  the 
Poet,  I  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  slowly  travers- 
ing it  in  the  society  of  Lamia. 

"  Do  you  not  perceive,"  she  said,  "  that  all 
the  impression  and  effect  one  wants  from  a 
garden  is  here  produced  without  visible  effort 
or  intention,  and  that  the  garden's  own  sweet 
will  has  been  taken  into  consideration  and  re- 
spect ?  It  seems,  and  therefore  is,  I  suppose, 
original  without  striving  to  be  so.  It  is  quite 
finished  enough  to  satisfy  the  healthily  fastidious 
sense,  it  wears  a  certain  air  of  unsolicitous  neg- 
ligence without  something  of  which,  though 
some  persons  seem  to  be  unaware  of  the  fact, 
there  can  be  no  simplicity,  and  no  sincerity. 
Into  a  garden  that  we  both  know,  but  that 
shall  be  nameless,  the  demon  of  tidiness  has 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          127 

perhaps  entered  overmuch,  and  if  *  the  grand 
old  gardener  and  his  wife '  do  not  have  a  care, 
they  will  in  time  be  expelled  from  what  may 
still  be  paradise.  Look  at  this  grassy  path, 
flanked  on  either  side  by  its  border  of  pinks 
whose  blooms  have  passed  away,  but  whose  sil- 
very foliage  remains,  of  white  phloxes,  pink 
hollyhocks, lingeringautumn  tea-roses,  and  slope 
of  apple-trees  hung  with  luscious-looking  fruit, 
and  seeming  as  though  they  still  blushed  for  the 
far-off  parental  fault  that  brought '  death  into  the 
world  and  all  our  woe.'  The  Tiger  and  Golden 
lilies  are  everywhere,  but  everywhere  in  unex- 
pected places,  withal  the  right  place.  Mignon- 
ette is  the  prevailing  fragrance  here,  heliotrope  the 
dominant  perfume  there  ;  and  now  we  are  walk- 
ing to  windward  of  a  miniature  forest  of  the  sweet- 
smelling  tobacco  plant,  though  I  cannot  see  it. 
And  don't  you  smell  the  night-stock  ?  I 
always  fancy  Shelley's  *  champak  odours  '  were 
from  the  night-stock,  though  I  have  no  doubt 
the  first  learned  person  could  show  triumphantly 
I  am  quite  wrong.  What  a  world  of  renewed 
youthfulness  there  must  be,  in  Spring,  in  that 
shrubbery  of  lilac,  laburnum,  Japanese  cherry, 


i28          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

and  standard  hawthorn  !  Our  host  is  a  bach- 
elor, is  he  not  ?  I  almost  think  I  should  like 
to  be  his  wife." 

"  Why,"  I  said,  "  he  is  more  than  twice 
your  age !  " 

"  Is  he  really  ?  "  she  replied.  "  I  should 
have  thought  he  was  only  half  my  age,  if  I  had 
thought  about  it  at  all.  Some  men  always 
seem  half  the  age  of  everybody  else.  More- 
over, I  like  old  people.  At  least,  I  dislike 
young  ones,  unless  they  be  very,  very  young. 
The  young  people,  especially  the  so-called  young 
people  of  to-day,  are  intolerable,  especially  the 
young  unmarried  women." 

"  But,"  I  observed,  "  you  yourself  are  a 
young  unmarried  woman." 

Quick  came  the  answer :  "  Oh,  but  we  all 
find  ourselves  bearable,  perhaps  because  we  are 
the  person  we  know  least  about." 

"  How  did  you  gain  admittance  ?  " 

"  By  leaning  over  the  little  gate  through 
which,  I  suppose,  you  likewise  entered  ;  until 
the  gardener,  observing  me,  asked  somewhat 
curtly  if  I  wanted  anything.  I  asked  if  our 
host,  as  you  call  him,  was  at  home.  The  gar- 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          129 

dener  said  he  was,  and  inquired  if  I  wanted 
anything  with  him,  which  perhaps  is  not  correct 
English,  but  is  understanded  of  the  people." 

"  And  what  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  I  hesitated,  and  then  answered,  *  Nothing 
in  particular ;  and  please  do  not  disturb  him 
on  my  account.'  He  walked  away,  and  I 
remained  leaning  over  the  gate.  Presently  our 
host  came  walking  in  its  direction.  I  suppose 
you  are  aware  that  I  know  a  certain  sort  of  per- 
son when  I  see  one,  and  that,  when  I  speak  to 
him,  he  at  once  exclaims,  in  your  loved  Virgil- 
ian  language,  O  Dea  certe  ?  " 

"  And  what,"  I  inquired,  "  may  a  certain 
sort  of  person  be  ?  " 

"  A  person  of  the  right  sort  is  one  who  has  a 
solid  grasp  and  realistic  apprehension  of  people 
and  things  as  they  are,  an  irresistible  inclination 
to  transfigure  them  according  to  his  imagina- 
tion, and  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  philo- 
sophic humour.  That  being  so,  if  you  cannot 
imagine  what  followed,  and  are  not  aware  that 
one  and  one  are  not  always  two,  but  some- 
times still  one  only,  you  are  duller  than  I  think 
you." 


1 30          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

At  this  moment  a  bell  rang  throughout  the 
little  garden,  admonitory  of  a  meal,  and  we  all 
met  at  the  foot  of  a  flight  of  stone  steps  in  whose 
cracks  and  crannies  yellow  stonecrop  was  thriv- 
ing, and  over  whose  timber  porch  vine,  honey- 
suckle, and  passion-flower  were  tangled  and 
intertwined.  The  architecture  of  the  cottage 
was  English,  nothing  more,  simple  but  not  un- 
beautifiil ;  and,  within,  prevailed  the  scent  of 
the  garden.  In  what  I  suppose  I  must  call  by 
the  conventional  name  of  the  drawing-room,  as 
equally  in  the  Hall,  I  noted  that  the  furniture 
was  all  home-produced  in  the  good  old  times  ; 
but  the  casts  of  bust,  torso,  or  statue,  and 
equally  the  engravings,  were  of  a  yet  older 
period,  the  very  heyday  of  Grecian  art ;  the 
Parthenon,  the  Hermes  from  Olympia,  the 
Berlin  Adorante,  the  Narciso,  the  bust  of 
Homer,  the  Bacchus  with  Cupid  on  his  shoul- 
der, that  are  in  the  Museum  at  Naples,  the 
Meleager  in  the  Vatican,  the  Venus  of  Melos 
in  the  Louvre,  being  conspicuous  among  them  ; 
just  as  in  the  dining-room  I  observed  that  only 
the  reproductions  of  the  best  Italian  painters 
were  recalled  to  one's  memory.  Veronica  told 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  131 

me  that  elsewhere  were  excellent  prints  of  the 
Rome  of  the  eighteenth  century,  from  the  origi- 
nal plates  of  the  elder  Piranesi  before  they  were 
looted  and  carried  off  to  Rome  by  the  great 
Corsican  pilferer,  and  there  lamentably  doc- 
tored, being,  after  his  very  proper  confinement 
in  Saint  Helena,  taken  back  to  the  Eternal 
City.  The  same  stamp  of  best,  and  best  only, 
was  to  be  observed  in  the  books  that  were  lying 
about.  Our  Host  had  himself  very  recently 
published  one ;  but  no  copy  of  it  was  visible, 
nor  any  paper  nor  review  referring  to  it. 

"  I  think,"  said  our  Host,  as  we  sate  down  to 
supper,  "  that  we  may  consider  grace  has  been 
provided  for,  and  will  preside  over,  our  meal, 
by  two  at  least  of  the  company  who  have  hon- 
oured me  by  their  society  this  evening ;  and, 
while  I  make  no  manner  of  apology  for  its 
Spartan  character,  I  wish  to  commend  to  your 
benevolent  notice,  since  I  neither  produced  nor 
purchased  it,  but  received  it  as  a  gift,  some  wine 
superior  to  any  Horace  ever  drank,  or  that 
Redi  has  extolled,  since  it  was  grown  and  bot- 
tled in  the  Heaven-favoured  land  and  by  the 
painstaking,  perfection-craving  people  of  France, 


1 32          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

and  that  may,  I  hope,  inspire  in  one  whom  I 
most  cordially  welcome  here,  a  blood-warming 
lyric  whose  body  will  be  as  full  and  whose  fla- 
vour as  refined  as  the  wine  itself,  and  whose 
rhymes  may  ring  as  roundly"  —  and  here 
he  suited  the  action  to  the  word  — "  as  the 
drawing  of  this  —  yes  !  —  perfectly  sound 
cork." 

He  came  to  each  of  us  in  turn,  and  filled  our 
glasses  with  the  bright,  clear,  aromatic  wine. 
When  that  important  but  simple  duty  was  per- 
formed, the  Poet  raised  his  glass  and  said  : 

"  To  the  giver  of  the  Feast !  " 

"  That  is  an  honour,"  said  our  Host,  "  that 
I  think  ought  to  be  divided  between  the  osten- 
sible giver  and  this  gracious  child  of  nature  who 
is  sitting  on  my  left.  It  is  to  her,  not  to  me, 
we  are  all  indebted  for  a  meeting  like  this,  that 
doth  indeed  make  amends  for  many  a  more 
formal  one  which  I  have  no  doubt  we  have  all 
had  to  endure  in  our  time.  Hospitality  should 
be  accidental,  spontaneous,  and  impulsive,  not 
pre-arranged  and  calculated." 

"  So  think  all  of  us,  I  am  sure,"  said  Veronica. 
"You  have  drawn  the  just  distinction  between 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  133 

the  pleasures  of  the  table  and  its  pomps.  The 
second  kill  the  first." 

"  And  the  guests  as  well,"  said  Lamia ;  "  and 
make  them  meanwhile  drag  on  a  miserable  ex- 
istence. Is  it  not  the  same  with  what  is  now 
called  '  entertaining,'  in  country  houses,  to 
which  people  are  invited  for  weeks  beforehand, 
and  where  not  only  the  day  in  which  you  are 
expected  to  arrive  and  to  depart  is  named  with 
Procrustean  exactness,  but  the  very  hour  and 
train  are  indicated  with  equal  precision  ?  What 
can  be  the  cause  of  such  enjoyment-baffling 
fatuity  ?  " 

"The  disappearance  of  friendship,"  said  our 
Host.  "  Most  people  in  these  days  are  too 
busy,  too  much  in  a  hurry,  and  too  inflamed 
with  social  ambition,  to  be  friendly.  Their 
business  is,  for  the  most  part,  unprofitable, 
their  hurry  is  gratuitous,  and  their  ambition  is 
both  trivial  and  futile.  Everybody  seems  to 
know  everybody,  and  nobody  to  care  for  any- 
body, save  as  a  convenient  card  for  playing 
successfully  the  game  of  *  Entertaining.' ' 

"  Just  so,"  said  Lamia  ;  "  I  have  been  asked 
to  scores  of  Country  Houses  for  just  thirty- 


i34          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

eight  hours  to  the  stroke,  for  no  better  reason 
that  I  could  see  than  the  one  for  which  notori- 
ously good  shots  are  invited  to  a  battue  ;  except 
that,  in  my  case,  I  was  invited  to  occupy,  not 
a  hot  corner  but  a  lukewarm  one." 

"  There  will  always  be  a  warm  one  for  you 
here,  and  "  —  turning  to  Veronica  —  "  if  I  may 
make  bold  to  say  so,  for  you  equally." 

And  this  was  the  man  whom  one  had  often 
heard  described  as  churlishly,  or  superciliously, 
secluded,  and  self-centred ! 

"  But  how,"  asked  Veronica,  after  an  acknow- 
ledgment of  the  fervent  words  as  gracious  as 
themselves,  "  is  a  cure  to  be  found  for  a  disease 
which  Lamia  has  described  as  a  mortal  one  ? " 

"  Is  it  not,"  he  answered,  "  to  be  looked  for 
in  the  very  deadliness  of  the  disease  ? " 

"  Conceivably,"  observed  the  Poet.  "  In- 
genious optimists,  I  daresay  you  have  noticed, 
have  recently  propounded  the  theory  that  there 
is  no  trustworthy  remedy  for  excessive  drink- 
ing except  letting  people  drink.  They  must 
drink  themselves  out  of  drunkenness,  by  sheer 
incapacity  for  further  drinking.  May  it  prove 
the  same  with  organised  entertaining !  When 


HAUNTS    OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          135 

it  does,  spontaneous,  unexpected,  and  delight- 
ful hospitality  like  this  will  be,  not  the  exception, 
but  the  rule." 

It  was  a  summer  night,  windless  and  full  of 
fragrance,  without  any  hint  that  chill  October, 
though  not  very  far-off,  was  waiting  to  cause 
the  less  young  members  of  a  company  to  say, 
"  I  think  I  will  go  indoors."  Our  Host  led 
the  way  up  the  garden  till  we  reached  a  sum- 
mer-house furnished  as  a  "  study,"  in  which  he 
evidently  wrote  when  the  humour  took  him. 
Lights  there  were  within,  though  its  doors  stood 
wide  open  ;  but  there  were  wicker  chairs  outside 
it,  and  there  it  was  we  preferred  to  sit.  The 
conversation,  like  our  meeting,  being,  if  I  may 
call  it  so,  accidental,  ranged  over  several  sub- 
jects, and  it  was  only  natural,  perhaps,  that 
some  of  it  should  concern  itself  with  authors 
and  authorship ;  and,  as  I  was  a  listener 
throughout,  I  will  set  down  a  portion  of  it, 
in  the  hope  that  it  may  have  some  interest  for 
others,  as  at  the  time  it  had  for  me. 

"  I  should  think,"  said  our  Host,  when  it 
happened  to  touch  on  the  mistaken  estimate  so 
often  formed  of  writers  of  imagination  by  their 


136           HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

contemporaries,  "  that  all  of  us  here  know  what 
an  erroneous  notion  it  is  that  only  one  opinion, 
and  that  favourable,  was  always  entertained  con- 
cerning works  now  admittedly  of  the  highest 
order.  In  Virgil's  lifetime,  a  work  by  one 
Asconius  Pedianus  was  published  entitled  Con- 
tra Qbtrectatores  Virgilii,  Anglice,  if  it  be  neces- 
sary to  translate  it,  A  Defence  of  Virgil  against 
bis  Detractors.  In  the  Middle  Ages  he  was 
revered,  not  so  much  as  a  great  poet,  but  as  a 
compound  of  the  semi-Christian  saint,  prophet, 
and  wizard ;  and  it  required  a  Dante  to  hail 
him  as  //  savio,  mio  maestro,  and  degli  altri  poeti 
onore  e  lume.  Later  on,  a  German  writer  de- 
scribed him  as  c  unreadable,  or  at  least  not 
read.'  One  critic  speaks  of  him  as  c  frigid 
and  shallow  ' ;  another  opines  that,  if  you  were 
to  take  away  his  diction  and  metre,  nothing 
would  be  left ;  a  third  clubs  together  the  Mneid, 
the  Henriade,  and  the  Messiah,  and  deems  all 
three  equally  deserving  of  critical  contempt ; 
while  a  fourth,  referring  to  the  legend  that  Vir- 
gil himself  was  tempted  to  burn  his  great  poem 
on  account  of  its  imperfections,  regrets  that  he 
did  not  yield  to  the  temptation.  In  the  year 


HAUNTS  OF   ANCIENT    PEACE          137 

>  eighty  years  after  Dante  died,  the  Public 
Authorities  of  Florence  decreed  that  five  mon- 
uments should  be  erected  in  Santa  Maria  del 
Fiore  to  the  most  famous  Florentine  writers. 
Among  the  five  was  one  gentleman  called  Ac- 
cursio,  about  whom  I  can  tell  you,  and  I  sus- 
pect you  could  tell  me,  nothing,  and  another 
bearing  the  name  of  Zanobi  da  Strada.  Dante, 
it  is  true,  was  one,  but  not  the  first  named,  of 
the  five  ;  but  I  think  we  may  doubt  if  he  would 
have  esteemed  it  an  honour  to  be  made  delta 
loro  scbiera,  one  of  such  a  band  as  that,  as  he 
did  when  Virgil  made  him  sesto  tra  cotanto 
senna,  or  sixth,  in  the  sage  company  of  Homer, 
Horace,  Ovid,  Lucan,  and  himself.  Can  you 
help  us,"  he  said,  turning  to  Lamia,  "  with  more 
illustrations  of  the  truth  on  which  I  have  expa- 
tiated, I  fear,  rather  longsomely  ?  for  I  feel  sure 
you  have  a  good  and  a  ready  memory." 

"  My  contributions  to  the  subject,"  she  an- 
swered, "  can  be  but  few  and  feeble,  after  your 
more  recondite  ones.  But  I  seem  to  remember, 
and  Veronica  will  help  me  when  I  am  at  fault, 
for  we  not  long  ago  explored  the  subject  to- 
gether, that  some  one  who  has  been  forgotten 


138  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

for  many  a  generation  wrote  of  the  author  of 
Julius  Ctesar  that  he  had  his  head  full  of  vio- 
lent and  unnatural  images,  and  that  history 
alone  furnished  him  with  fine-sounding  names ; 
while  a  more  distinguished  and  less  forgotten 
personage,  declared  the  soliloquy  f  To  be  or 
not  to  be,'  in  Hamlet,  a  heap  of  absurdities. 
Everybody  knows  how  a  celebrated  critic  pro- 
nounced Hamlet  throughout  to  be  the  work  of 
a  drunken  savage.  Of  Paradise  Lost  a  con- 
temporary of  Milton  wrote  that  a  blind  old 
schoolmaster  had  written  an  epic  poem  on  the 
Fall  of  Man,  the  only  remarkable  thing  about 
which  was  its  length." 

"  Such  reminiscences,"  said  the  Poet,  "  if 
not  dwelt  on  overmuch,  so  as  to  foster  self- 
consciousness,  may  perhaps  be  consoling  to 
writers  who  think,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that 
they  are  treated  with  some  unfairness  by  their 
contemporaries.  But,  due  allowance  having 
been  made  for  that,  do  you  not  think  that 
authors  are  themselves,  through  excessive  sen- 
sitiveness, frequently  unjust  to  those  whom 
they  consider  wanting  in  just  appreciation  of 
their  works  ?  As  a  rule,  these  write  in  haste, 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          139 

and  with  a  certain  bias,  almost  inevitable  in 
human  nature.  The  author,  for  instance,  they 
decry  is,  say,  a  man  who  holds  what  the  critic 
regards  as  pestilent  political  opinions,  who  at 
some  time  or  another  mayv  possibly  have  struck, 
hard  for  these,  and  which  for  the  time  being 
have  now  gained  the  ascendant.  He  may  have 
been  educated  at  the  wrong  University,  or  even 
not  be  a  University  man  at  all ;  while  the  critic 
is,  or  fancies  himself  to  be,  a  distinguished  alum- 
nus of  some  famous  Alma  Mater,  of  whose 
claim  to  a  monopoly  of  enjoying  or  bestowing 
distinction  he  is  filially  jealous.  The  writer 
under  review  may  be  of  a  wrong  way  of  think- 
ing in  theology,  which  has  always  been  regarded 
as  an  intolerable  provocation  to  a  right-minded 
critic ;  or  other  people,  equally  objectionable 
from  one  or  other  of  these  points  of  view,  may 
consider  and  habitually  treat  him  as  an  author 
of  much  power  and  imagination  ;  and  that  is 
too  exasperating  not  to  be  resented.  Finally, 
or  at  least  to  end  these,  I  fear,  tedious  surmises, 
he  may  have  written  works  nearly  as  long  as 
Paradise  Lost,  which  this  entertaining  young 
lady  has  informed  us  a  contemporary  critic 


1 40          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

affirmed  to  have  nothing  remarkable  about  it 
except  its  length,  he  no  doubt  not  having  read 
it;  and,  in  these  days,  it  has  been  discovered 
that  life  is  too  short  to  read  any  poetry  except 
brief  lyrics.  I  almost  think,  Lamia,  you  might 
at  some  time  or  another  complete  your  inter- 
esting investigations  by  making,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  collection,  after  industrious  search  in 
files  of  forgotten  publications,  of  the  enthusi- 
astic reception  accorded  to  works,  week  after 
week  once  declared  to  be  immortal,  that  are 
already  dead." 

"  I  have  already,"  said  Lamia,  "  made  a 
tolerably  bulky  collection  of  ephemeral  pane- 
gyrics upon  poetry  affirmed  to  be  permanent, 
or,  in  the  lofty  critical  language  of  our  day, 
come  to  stay,  that  are  already  portions  of  the 
buried  past.  Indeed  I  have  written  a  work, 
I  need  hardly  add,  a  great  work,  on  the  sub- 
ject, and  am  already  making  due  provision 
for  its  being  judged  fairly,  by  arranging  to 
have  most  of  the  notices  of  it  written  by  my 
friends.  Everybody  present  will  receive  an 
advance  copy,  so  that  you  may  all  have  ample 
time  in  which  to  prepare  your  spontaneous  ad- 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  141 

miration.  Lest  any  one  should  consider  such 
a  course  open  to  adverse  comment,  I  may  re- 
mind you  that  a  writer  who,  though  now  in  his 
grave,  may  accurately  be  described  as  of  our 
own  time,  wrote  in  the  following  words  to  a 
critic  and  a  friend :  ( I  am  anxious  that  some 
influential  article  or  articles  by  the  well-affected 
should  appear  at  once  when  my  book  comes 
out.  So-and-so  wishes  to  do  it  in  the  so-and-so, 
and  so-and-so  elsewhere;  and  if  these,  and  yours, 
with  perhaps  another  or  so,  could  appear  at 
once,'  —  I  forget  the  ipsissima  verba  of  the  rest 
of  the  sentence,  but,  with  your  great  intelli- 
gence, you  can  easily  surmise  its  purport.  But 
I  do  recollect  that  the  same  wise  and  far-seeing 
author  wrote  to  a  female  confidante,  —  it  was 
not  I,  for  I  must  have  been  teething  at  the 
time,  — 1 1  shall  certainly  get  the  book  out  by 
the  end  of  April,  as  three  or  four  kindly  hands 
are  already  at  work  on  it  for  the  May  peri- 
odicals.' So,  you  see,  I  have  ample  warrant 
for  the  course  I  propose  to  pursue,  and  into 
which  I  cannot  doubt  you  will  all  enter  with 
becoming  spirit.  To  show  you  the  absolute 
confidence  I  have  in  your  friendliness  and  dis- 


1 42  HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT  PEACE 

cretion,  I  will  add  that  I  intend  to  write  the 
adverse  notices  of  the  work  myself,  so  as  to 
take  care  they  shall  not  be  too  offensive,  except 
to  the  writers  of  the  favourable  notices,  who,  I 
am  sure,  will  not  mind  being  held  up  by  me  to 
public  ridicule  for  so  praiseworthy  an  object. 
And  if  my  particular  log  does  not  roll  after  all 
that  pushing,  their  labour  is  in  vain  that  make 
it,  which  in  the  long  run  it  no  doubt  will  be. 
But  meanwhile  I  shall  be  one  of  the  Women  of 
the  Time,  indeed, — who  knows  ?  — the  Woman 
of  the  Time  !  " 

"You  will  richly  deserve  the  particular  re- 
ward that  awaits  you,"  said  our  Host,  entering 
with  sympathetic  zest  into  Lamia's  humour. 
"  But  as  your  irony,  dear  young  lady,  is  some- 
times so  fine  that  it  is  not  always  possible  to  be 
certain  whether  in  your  quotations  you  are  giv- 
ing us  the  precise  text  of  what  occurred  or  only 
a  playful  verisimilitude  of  it,  please  tell  us  if  you 
were  trusting  to  your  memory  or  your  inven- 
tion for  the  passages  in  the  letters  from  which 
you  have  just  cited." 

"  From  my  memory,  I  can  assure  you ;  for 
I  copied  them  out  not  very  long  ago.  They 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          143 

are  the  precise  words  used  by  a  writer  of  real 
literary  distinction ;  and  his  correspondents  are 
almost  as  well  known  as  himself." 

"  Is  it  possible  !  "  he  seriously  exclaimed ; 
and  then,  altering  his  tone  to  suit  the  occasion, 
"  but  since  it  is  not  only  possible,  but  actually 
occurred,  you  have,  as  you  say,  copious  prece- 
dent for  the  course  you  propose  to  pursue  for 
the  welfare  of  your  great  work,  and  to  the  in- 
stantaneous recognition  of  whose  merits  we 
shall  all,  I  am  sure,  gladly  minister  in  the  man- 
ner you  have  described.  I  shall  look  for  the 
advance  copy  you  promise  me,  with  an  eager 
interest." 

"And  I,"  said  the  Poet,  "who  am  your 
humble  and  obedient  servant,  shall  do  the 
same." 

"  But,"  said  Lamia,  "  I  have  not  yet  ex- 
hausted the  praiseworthy  methods  I  propose  to 
pursue  in  the  interests  of  the  Higher  Literature. 
No  truly  wise  and  patriotic  person,  I  am  told, 
holds  aloof  from  what  is  called  the  General 
Movement,  and  this  is  the  Age  of  Trusts  ;  and 
I  intend  to  establish  two  more :  one,  the  De- 
preciating Trust,  the  other  the  Critical  Combine, 


144 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 


in  which  every  unappreciated  or  insufficiently 
appreciated  writer,  and  every  more  or  less  dis- 
appointed author,  will,  I  am  assured,  take  a 
share.  I  have  already  engaged  some  well- 
known  experts ;  and  though  our  operations 
will  not  be  altogether  novel,  they  will  be 
more  extensive  and  more  united  than  any 
yet  attempted." 

I  had  noticed  that,  during  this  seemingly 
frivolous  persiflage,  Veronica  had  exhibited 
some  signs  of  impatience,  and  she  now  broke 
in  with  what  was  evidently  an  irresistible 
impulse. 

"  I  am  sure  our  kind  Host  will  pardon  me 
if  I  say  that  you  have  all  displayed  a  lamentable 
lack  of  moral  sense.  For  my  part,  I  can  neither 
condone,  nor  treat  lightly,  unworthy  and,  most 
of  all,  unjust  and  malignant  conduct ;  and  it  is 
most  unjust  and  base  for  any  one  to  depreciate 
either  a  writer  or  a  book,  for  any  of  the  reasons 
that  have  been  pleaded  as  not  only  an  explana- 
tion but  a  palliation  of,  and  almost  as  an  excuse 
for,  the  offence." 

"  But,  my  dear  Veronica,"  said  the  Poet,  "  to 
whom  is  it  unjust  ?  Possibly  to  the  person 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          145 

who  perpetrates  the  offence ;  certainly  not  to 
the  writer  against  whom  it  is  directed.  A  man's 
reputation,  if  he  deserves  one,  is  invariably 
made  for  him  by  his  enemies." 

"  I  am  entirely  of  that  opinion,"  said  our 
Host.  "  He  is  decried  into  consideration,  and 
belittled  into  fame.  So  it  ever  was,  so  it  ever 
will  be." 

"  There  !  "  exclaimed  Lamia,  triumphantly. 
"  My  conduct  is  justified  in  advance.  I  shall 
owe  nothing  to  any  of  you,  eulogise  me  as 
industriously  as  you  may.  I  shall  owe  my 
reputation  wholly  to  myself,  my  own  best 
enemy." 

"  If  I  may,"  said  our  Host,  "for  a  moment 
treat  seriously  the  subject  our  young  companion 
has  enlivened  with  her  amiable  satire,  I  cannot 
help  thinking,  with  our  friend  here,  that  authors 
are  somewhat  to  blame,  and  much  to  be  pitied, 
for  the  unnecessary  sensitiveness  they  show  to 
malevolent,  and  even  to  honestly  adverse,  com- 
ment. The  day  after  Petrarch  was  crowned 
with  the  laurel  wreath,  he  was  attacked  by 
ruffians  under  the  very  walls  of  Rome.  But 
one  never  heard  he  was  any  the  worse  for  it. 


146          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Yet,  incredible  as  it  seems,  Petrarch,  who  en- 
joyed the  esteem  of  all  estimable  men  and  the 
reverence  of  all  reverent  minds,  actually  wrote 
to  Boccaccio  in  the  following  words :  l  The 
laurel  brought  me  no  increase  of  learning  or 
literary  power,  as  you  may  well  imagine,  while 
it  destroyed  my  peace  by  the  infinite  jealousy 
it  aroused.  From  that  time,  well  nigh  every 
one  sharpened  his  tongue  against  me.  It  was 
necessary  to  be  constantly  on  the  alert,  with 
banners  flying,  to  be  ready  to  repel  an  attack, 
now  on  the  left,  now  on  the  right,  for  jealousy 
had  made  enemies  even  of  my  friends.  In  a 
word,  the  laurel  made  me  known,  only  to  be 
tormented.  Without  it,  I  should  have  led  the 
best  of  lives,  a  life  of  obscurity  and  peace.' ' 

"  I  echo  the  words,"  said  the  Poet,  "  you 
used  a  little  while  ago, '  Is  it  possible  ! '  Possible 
that  Petrarch,  of  all  persons,  should  have  written 
or  felt  like  that;  Petrarch  who,  as  you  know, 
ends  his  very  first  sonnet  with  the  exclamation  : 

Quanto  piace  al  mondo  e  breve  sogno ! 

But  if  authors  want  a  really  worthy  example, 
they  will  find  one  in  Walter  Scott,  the  noblest, 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          147 

the  manliest,  the  most  lovable  man  of  letters, 
with  whose  life  I  am  acquainted.  I  fear 
Veronica  would  tell  you  that  I  have  of  late 
been  somewhat  tiresomely  insistent  on  that 
theme  ;  for  last  winter  I  made  myself  more  in- 
timately acquainted  with  Lockhart's  Life  of  his 
father-in-law,  and  I  cannot  describe  how  deep 
is  the  impression  it  has  left  on  me.  It  inspired 
me  with  a  loving  worship  of  Scott's  character, 
and  made  me  retrospectively  long  to  have  been 
one  of  his  household,  and  to  have  waited  on  him, 
his  coming  and  his  going,  his  labours,  his  suf- 
ferings, his  patience,  with  the  fidelity  of  the  dogs 
to  whom  he  was  so  touchingly  attached." 

"  You  are  not  aware,  dear  Poet,"  said  Lamia, 
"  how  exasperating  you  are ;  and  this  evening  you 
have  some  one  almost  equally  so  to  keep  you 
company.  Were  I  really  a  professional  literary 
critic,  I  should  feel  concerning  both  what  I 
once  heard  said  of  one  of  you,  that  you  are  the 
most  annoying  of  men." 

"  But  why  ?  "  asked  our  Host. 

"  You  are  the  most  annoying  of  men,"  an- 
swered Lamia,  "  because  it  is  impossible  to 
annoy  you." 


148          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  You  put  the  matter  epigrammatically,  and 
therefore  amusingly,"  said  our  Host ;  "  an  ex- 
cellent way,  sometimes,  of  conveying  what  one 
seriously  thinks.  But,  in  truth,  what  is  there 
to  be  annoyed  at  ?  Even  the  most  cursory  and 
imperfect  survey  of  contemporaneous  judgments 
on  writers  and  their  works  in  the  past,  such  as 
we  have  had  this  evening,  serves  to  show  how 
fallacious  and  misleading  they  are.  Indeed,  the 
history  of  Literary  Criticism  is  an  almost  un- 
deviating  record  of  discredited  judgments,  futile 
ill-nature,  and  falsified  predictions.  Is  there 
any  reason  to  suppose  that  the  present  age  is 
any  more  infallible  than  its  predecessors  ?  I 
should  be  disposed  to  suggest  that  it  is  yet 
more  likely  to  prove  fallible  than  even  they 
were,  because  of  its  yet  greater  confidence  in  its 
infallibility.  Is  it  arrogant  to  ask  how  is  it  pos- 
sible for  any  serious  person  to  allow  himself  to 
be  overawed  by  the  opinion  of  the  present  Age 
for  instance,  that,  for  several  years,  believed  a 
greatly  gifted  and  splendidly  energetic  man  of 
action,  with  an  imperious  but  mercurial  mind, 
a  sonorous  voice,  a  commanding  manner,  and  a 
copious  but  somewhat  redundant  vocabulary,  but 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          149 

no  continuity  of  judgment,  no  true  insight,  to 
say  nothing  of  foresight,  and  a  curiously  per- 
verse sense  of  patriotism,  to  be  not  only  a 
Great  Statesman,  but  one  of  the  greatest  that 
ever  lived,  and  considered  any  one  incorrigibly 
stupid  or  bigoted  who  thought  otherwise  ?  Yet 
even  already,  people  have  begun  to  waver  in, 
if  not  to  abandon,  that  opinion.  Is  it  unreason- 
able to  suspect  that  the  current  literary  judg- 
ments of  the  time  will  prove  as  delusive  as  its 
political  ones  ?  One  must  remember,  more- 
over, that  many  of  the  loudest  and  most  persis- 
tent leaders  of  literary  opinion  are  themselves 
men  who  have  been  on  the  scene  for  a  consid- 
erable time,  and  therefore  continue,  partly  from 
an  intelligible  and  pardonable  self-love,  to  repeat 
and  insist  on  views  that,  with  minds  younger 
or  more  accessible  to  sounder  and  more  correct 
estimates,  are  already  becoming  obsolete." 

"You  are  very  courageous,"  said  the  Poet, 
"  to  enforce  the  view  you  have  been  express- 
ing with  such  an  illustration  as  you  have  just 
selected." 

"  But  do  you  think  I  am  wrong  ?  " 
"  I  could  not  honestly  say  that  I  do." 


1 5o          HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

"  So  I  imagined,  for  I  have  heard  that,  at  the 
time  of  the  final  disappearance  from  the  House 
of.  Commons  of  the  Great  Figure  I  have  alluded 
to,  you  wrote  some  lines  that  were  not  pub- 
lished, since  I  suppose  you  thought  the  moment 
inopportune  for  their  appearance." 

"  Yes,  that  is  so,"  was  the  reply.  "  Yet  the 
lines  were,  I  trust,  most  respectful,  for  it  seems 
to  me  it  is  very  unbecoming  in  any  one  to 
write  otherwise  of  a  man  who  is  held  in  great 
reverence  and  estimation  by  numbers  of  his 
countrymen." 

"  But  might  we  not  hear  them  to-night,  in 
this,  I  fancy,  tolerably  harmonious  company  ?  " 

"  I  could  not,  at  a  moment's  notice,  recall 
them  with  anything  like  accuracy,  they  were 
written  so  many  years  ago." 

"  But  /  can,"  said  Veronica ;  "  I  so  heartily 
concurred  with  them,  I  learned  them  by  heart." 

"  Please  do,  then." 

Whereupon  Veronica  recited,  much  better 
than  the  writer  of  them  would  have  done,  the 
following  stanzas :  — 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          151 

A   VANISHED  VOICE 
i 

Is  He  then  gone  ?     And  will  no  more 
That  Voice  sonorous  swell  and  soar 

Where  it  so  oft  hath  rung  ? 
Never  again  will  here  be  heard 
The  magic  of  his  glowing  word, 

The  glamour  of  his  tongue  ? 

ii 

Yes,  husht  and  vanished  now  for  aye 
The  thunderous  ire,  the  lightning  play, 

That  shook  or  lit  these  walls  ; 
And,  where  thronged  friend  and  foe  to  hear 
The  ringing  of  his  clarion  clear, 

A  farewell  silence  falls. 


For  well-nigh  more  than  twice  the  span 
Of  days  assigned  by  Fate  to  man 

For  virile  speech  and  sway, 
He  made  this  sounding  stage  his  own, 
And  charmed  with  wizard  talk  and  tone 

A  Senate's  sense  away. 

rv 

E'en  thus  of  old,  in  Athens  fair, 
The  Attic  Tyrant,  well  aware 
How  eloquence  still  charms, 


152          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

Lured  her  unwitting  freemen  near, 
Eager  to  see  and  keen  to  hear, 

Then  reft  them  of  their  arms. 


The  slave  of  speech,  but  lord  as  well 
He  wielded  it  with  such  a  spell, 

That  myriads,  pressing  round 
The  musical  enchanter,  caught 
Contagion  from  the  fervid  thought, 

Conviction  from  the  sound. 

VI 

Dupe  of  each  ill-digested  dream 
That  makes  spontaneous  impulse  seem 

A  message  from  the  skies, 
His  judgment  flamed  with  every  gust, 
Too  rashly  generous  to  be  just, 

Too  wayward  to  be  wise. 

vn 

The  cheap-earned  plaudits  of  the  crowd, 
Reward  of  Rulers  not  too  proud 

To  pass  to  it  the  Rod, 
Bewrayed  him  so  in  fading  years, 
He  fancied  its  fantastic  cheers, 

The  mandate  of  a  God. 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          153 


For  these  he  left  the  wise,  the  good, 
For  these  the  loyal  brotherhood 

That  long  around  his  name 
With  generous  ardour  flocked  and  fought, 
Unto  his  need  their  noblesse  brought, 

And  carried  him  to  Fame. 

IX 

Doubtless  he  deemed  —  for  unto  him, 
Thus  frenzied,  Passion's  latest  whim 

Appeared  a  sacred  creed,  — 
That  the  wise  Past,  so  tried,  so  taught 
By  stern  experience,  only  fought 

For  privilege  and  greed. 


Thus  he  who  thought  himself  the  friend 
Of  each  wide  aim,  each  virtuous  end, 

A  narrow  Flag  unfurled, 
Striving  to  pen,  in  puny  fields, 
The  race  whose  wave-wide  Sceptre  shields 

The  welfare  of  the  world. 


Oh  !  how  unlike  to  Him  who  sleeps 
Where  Hughenden's  green  woodland  keeps 
Watch  o'er  a  Statesman's  grave ; 


154          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

Who  trod  his  base-born  self-love  down, 
And  lived  to  learn  the  loftiest  Crown 
Is  to  be  England's  slave. 

XII 

Who  waxed,  as  well  beseems  the  sage, 
Still  more  magnanimous  with  age 

Unto  his  latest  breath ; 
Smiled  at  the  fickle  shafts  of  Fate, 
In  adverse  fortune  doubly  great, 

And  dignified  in  death. 


Hence  with  our  Isle's  majestic  name 
Will  His  be  linked  as  long  as  Fame 

Smiles  round  its  foam-fenced  shore ; 
While  he,  whose  farewell  word  was  strife, 
Will  sound,  in  story  as  in  life, 

A  Voice,  and  nothing  more. 

When  we  rose  to  take  farewell,  our  Host 
said  he  would  walk  part  of  the  way  with  us  to 
the  little  Inn.  It  still  remained  a  fragrant  wind- 
less night,  and  its  warmth  seemed  to  come  up 
to  us  from  the  very  road  we  were  traversing. 

"  To  revert,  if  for  a  moment  I  may,"  he 
said,  "  to  the  sensitiveness  of  too  many  authors 
to  criticism,  if  a  writer  does  happen  to  think 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  155 

his  works  imperfectly  appreciated,  can  he  not 
console  himself  by  observing  the  manner  in 
which  the  quiet  power,  the  manly  strength,  the 
patient  forbearance,  the  sustained  resolution,  the 
unostentatious  self-reliance,  the  exalted  purpose, 
the  unparalleled  magnanimity,  exhibited  by  the 
British  People,  have  recently  been  maligned  by 
the  jealousy  of  alien  and  the  animus  of  domes- 
tic critics  ?  A  writer  who,  after  witnessing  such 
a  spectacle,  can  dwell  on  the  supposed  injustice 
done  to  his  insignificant  self,  must  have  a  very 
exaggerated  estimate  of  his  own  importance  and 
of  that  of  his  traducers.  Would  it  not  be 
wiser  to  cultivate  indifference  to  the  babel  of 
utterances  called  Public  Opinion,  but  which  is 
in  reality  the  opinion  of  no  one  who  is  inde- 
pendent, competent,  and  sincere,  and  merely 
*  what  people  think  that  other  people  think ' ; 
in  other  words,  what  nobody  thinks  ?  And 
now,  good  night !  Let  us  meet  again." 

For  a  time  we  walked  on  in  silence  ;  and 
then,  one  after  another,  we  spoke  kindly  things 
of  him  who  had  left  us. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Lamia  to  the  Poet, 
perhaps  half-unconsciously  as  an  excuse  for  the 


156          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

liking  she  had  shown  for  our  new  acquaintance, 
"  I  almost  think  I  see  some  points  of  resem- 
blance between  him  and  you." 

"  I  should  like  to  think,  Lamia,  you  were 
right,"  was  the  reply.  "  His  mind  is  a  Haunt 
of  Ancient  Peace." 


IV 

THE  boat  for  a  three  days'  river  excursion 
that  Veronica  had  arranged  for  us  was  ready, 
and  so  were  we,  except  that  Lamia  was  missing. 
When  we  go  from  home  for  enjoyment,  or  in- 
deed when  we  remain  there,  we  do  not  fuss 
over  things  insignificant,  nor  do  we  make  our- 
selves slaves  to  twenty-four-hour  clock-chains ; 
and  so  Lamia's  momentary  absence  was  taken 
as  all  in  the  day's  pastime,  and  we  awaited  her 
return  with  unruffled  equanimity.  I  remember 
once  saying  to  a  friend,  who  had  suffered 
many  disappointments  in  life,  and  who  at  that 
moment  was  experiencing,  together  with  my- 
self, the  result  of  a  third  person's  carelessness, 
"  It  does  not  matter."  He  replied,  "  No, 
nothing  matters."  That  sounded  sad ;  and 
inwardly  I  did  not  assent  to  it.  But  I  said 
nothing,  for  I  felt  it  foreboded  the  end,  which 

o* 

indeed  very  shortly  came.      But  it  is  foolish,  is 
it  not,  to  make  immaterial  things  matter ;  and 

157 


158          HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

for  a  while  we  sate  on  the  river  bank,  and 
watched  and  listened  to  the  water  flowing,  flow- 
ing, flowing. 

"  I  will  answer  for  it,"  said  Veronica,  "  she 
has  gone  to  say  good-bye  to  our  host  of  last 
night." 

"  Likely  enough,"  said  the  Poet ;  "  our  ser- 
viceable ambassadress  to  the  last." 

"  Shall  we,"  I  suggested,  "  walk  towards  that 
wood  which  he  mentioned  as  having  a  peculiar 
sylvan  charm  ?  A  ten  minutes'  saunter,  at 
most,  would  bring  us  there." 

The  calculation  proved  to  be  correct ;  and 
we  had  not  got  far  into  the  wood,  before,  the 
first  to  catch  the  sound,  I  thought  I  heard 
Lamia's  voice,  and  said  so.  A  moment  or  two 
later  we  perceived  our  friend  of  the  preceding 
evening  leaning  against  the  trunk  of  a  horn- 
beam, and,  overhearing  the  rustling  sound  made 
by  us  among  the  leaves  of  the  undergrowth,  he 
turned  towards  us,  and  laid  his  finger  across 
his  lips  to  warn  us  to  move  as  quietly  as  pos- 
sible. Lamia's  voice  was  now  audible  to  us 
all ;  and,  advancing  a  few  paces  nearer,  we  per- 
ceived that  she  was  seated  on  the  ground,  in  an 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  159 

open  space  of  sward,  and  in  a  semicircle  in  front 
of  her  were  a  number  of  young  girls,  ranging 
from  six  to  maybe  eleven  years  of  age,  likewise 
seated. 

"Tell  me  now,"  she  said,  "which  of  your 
lessons  at  school  is  it  you  like  least." 

After  a  short  silence,  evidently  due  to  shyness 
rather  than  to  hesitation,  one  of  them  answered  : 

"  'Rithmetic !  "  And  then  one  and  all  took 
up  the  cry,  "  Yes,  Miss,  'rithmetic  !  " 

"  Arithmetic  !  "  said  Lamia.  "  Why,  that  is 
the  most  interesting  of  all  studies." 

That  something  in  her  voice,  her  look,  her 
manner,  in  a  word  her  personality,  which  draws 
other  people  to  her,  made  them,  too,  instantly 
attentive ;  and  she  went  on  talking  to  them,  in 
a  familiar,  simple  way,  that  I  fear  it  is  given  to 
few  schoolmistresses  to  possess.  "  Let  me  show 
you  how  interesting  Arithmetic  is.  It  has  to 
do,  as  you  know,  with  numerals  or  numbers, 
and  number  is  at  the  heart  of  everything.  A 
very  wise  and  gifted  people,  perhaps  the  most 
gifted  that  ever  lived,  and  who  were  as  great  in 
their  way,  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago, 
—  you  see  I  have  to  use  numbers  even  in 


160          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

alluding  to  them,  —  as  England,  whose  children 
you  are,  is  in  its  way  to-day,  thought  so  much 
of  Arithmetic,  which  in  their  language  signified 
the  method  or  science  of  calculating,  that  they 
made  it  a  part,  not  only  of  elementary,  but  of 
the  very  highest,  education.  For  the  same 
reason  they  looked  on  Music,  which  depends 
on  number,  as  an  indispensable  part  of  every- 
body's training.  You  all  like  Music,  do  you 
not?" 

"  Oh  yes,  Miss,"  cried  several  of  the  young 
girls,  "  we  all  like  Music." 

"  And  Poetry  too,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"Yes,  Miss,  and  Poetry  too."  And  three 
or  four  of  them  called  out,  "  Oh,  we  love 
Poetry." 

"Well,  I  will  show  you  directly  that  Poetry, 
just  as  much  as  Music,  depends  on  numbers, 
and  could  not  exist  without  them ;  so  much 
so  that,  once  on  a  time,  the  word  Poetry,  and 
the  word  numbers,  signified  the  same  thing. 
A  celebrated  poet  of  our  own  island,  who  wrote 
two  hundred  years  ago,  speaking  of  himself, 
says : 

I  lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came : 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  161 

meaning,  not  that  he  said  twice  two  are  four, 
or  eight  and  seven  are  fifteen,  but  that  he  wrote 
poetry  when  quite  a  little  fellow.  With  the 
Greeks,  of  whom  I  was  speaking  to  you  just 
now,  there  were  three  Graces  and  nine  Muses, 
and  the  Muses  even  came  to  be  spoken  and 
written  of  simply  as  'The  Nine.  Even  in  prose, 
and  the  most  prosaic  prose,  as  in  the  hourly 
affairs  of  life,  we  cannot  get  along  without  num- 
bers. You  all  know  how  many  farthings  there 
are  in  a  penny,  how  many  pennies  in  a  shilling, 
how  many  shillings  in  a  pound,  how  many  fur- 
longs in  a  mile,  how  many  miles  in  a  league, 
and  so  on.  In  other  countries  they  count  only 
by  tens  in  dealing  with  money,  distances,  or 
weights ;  and  that  is  the  shortest  and  most 
convenient  way  of  calculating.  But  we  are 
a  people  who  cling  to  old  ways  and  customs ; 
and  so  we  calculate  as  our  ancestors  calculated, 
ever  so  long  ago.  But  some  of  the  greatest 
and  most  useful  minds  in  the  world  occupy 
themselves  almost  entirely  with  numbers,  for 
thus  they  learn  and  can  tell  us  ever  so  much 
about  the  sun,  and  the  moon,  and  the  stars ; 
for  the  planets  travel  in  obedience  to  numbers, 


1 62          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

which  shows,  does  it  not,  that  numbers  and 
Arithmetic  are  part  of  the  will  and  word  of 
God.  But  now  as  to  Music  and  Poetry. 
Without  numbers  or  Arithmetic,  as  I  have 
told  you,  there  could  be  no  Music,  and  no 
Poetry,  indeed  none  of  the  Arts,  and  there 
would  be  nothing  nice  and  beautiful  in  the 
world.  I  hope  they  teach  you  at  school,  and 
that  you  eagerly  try  to  learn,  pieces  of  poetry 
by  heart ;  and  I  want  you  to  listen  to  one  I 
am  going  to  recite,  by  one  of  the  greatest  of 
English  Poets,  far,  far  greater  than  the  writers 
of  verse  who  seem  to-day  to  be  popular  favour- 
ites ;  for  I  want  you  to  listen  attentively,  and 
to  observe  how  the  metre  and  music  of  the 
lines  depend  in  no  small  degree  on  numbers 
or  arithmetic.  It  is  by  Byron,  is  not  in  the 
smallest  degree  affected,  is  very  simple,  but 
very  sublime,  quite  clear  in  meaning,  and 
every  word  is  in  its  natural  and  proper  place. 
You  remember  how  Belshazzar  the  King  made 
a  great  feast  to  a  thousand  of  his  lords,  and 
drank  wine  before  them.  Now  listen  :  — 

"  In  that  same  hour  and  hall, 
The  fingers  of  a  hand 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          163 

Came  forth  against  the  wall, 

And  wrote  as  if  on  sand  : 
The  fingers  of  a  man, 

A  solitary  hand, 
Along  the  letters  ran, 

And  traced  them  like  a  wand. 

-""'  Chaldea's  seers  are  good, 

But  here  they  have  no  skill  ; 
And  the  unknown  letters  stood 

Untold  and  awful  still. 
And  Babel's  men  of  age 

Are  wise  and  deep  in  lore  ; 
But  now  they  were  not  sage, 

They  saw,  but  knew  no  more. 

"  A  captive  in  the  land, 

A  stranger  and  a  youth, 
He  heard  the  king's  command, 

He  saw  that  writing's  truth. 
The  lamps  around  were  bright, 

The  prophecy  in  view  ; 
He  read  it  on  that  night, 

The  morrow  proved  it  true. 

"  «  Belshazzar's  grave  is  made, 

His  kingdom  passed  away, 

He,  in  the  balance  weighed, 

Is  light  and  worthless  clay. 


1 64          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

The  shroud,  his  robe  of  state, 

His  canopy  the  stone  ; 
The  Mede  is  at  his  gate  ! 

The  Persian  on  his  throne  ! ' 

"  You  all,  I  am  sure,  feel  the  music,  or  num- 
bers, of  that.  But,  without  numbers,  there 
could  not  be  any  dancing,  and  that  would  be 
terrible,  would  it  not  ?  You  all  know  how  to 
dance,  I  am  sure  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Miss,  we  can  all  dance." 

"And  sing?  " 

"  Yes,  yes,  we  can  all  sing." 

"  And  I  am  sure  you  know  several  lines  of 
verse  that  go  with  music,  and  that  you  can  sing 
as  well  as  recite." 

"  Oh  yes,  Miss,  lots  !  " 

"  Then  I  think  we  had  better,  all  of  us,  have 
a  dance,  and  sing  to  our  own  dancing." 

Thereupon  Lamia  rose  to  her  feet,  and  the 
children  promptly  scrambled  to  theirs,  took 
each  other's  little  hands,  all  of  them  trying  to 
get  hold  of  Lamia's,  and  then  began : 

"  Here  we  go  round,  and  round,  and  round, 
Here  we  go  round  and  round." 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  165 

Then  our  host  of  yesterday  ran  forward,  and 
so  did  Veronica  and  the  Poet,  and  so  did  I, 
and  we  all  joined  in  the  rustic  roundelay.  Then, 
growing  bolder,  they  sang  other  words  and  an- 
other tune,  but  they  were  always  words  and 
tunes  known  to  us  all,  as  old  as  the  hills,  and 
much,  much  older  than  the  oldest  of  the  horn- 
beams that  were  looking  on ;  and  the  five  elder 
ones  of  us  felt  that  we  also  were  in  Arcadia. 
At  last  we  were  fairly  tired  out,  though  the 
youngsters  were  not,  and  the  circle  was  broken 
up ;  and  Lamia  and  Veronica  kissed  them  one 
and  all,  and  they  flowed  and  raced  and  chased 
after  us,  now  in  separate  little  rivulets,  now  in 
one  united  stream,  till  we  reached  the  river  and 
entered  our  Boat.  And,  by  the  river-side  they 
kept  on  singing,  and  dancing,  and  kissing  their 
hands  ;  and  the  one  solitary  grown-up  figure 
left  on  the  bank  said,  "  Dear  folk !  Come 
again ! "  and  gazed  after  us  till  we  were  lost 
to  his  sight,  and  he  to  ours.  But  I  know  he 
will  never  forget  us,  nor  we  him,  and  that  he 
will  love  Lamia  for  evermore. 

******* 

If    Lamia's   object,  in   proposing  what  had 


1 66          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

given  us  all,  and  gave  us  to  the  last,  so  much 
pleasure,  had  been  to  write  or  to  enable  some 
one  else  to  write  a  book,  we  might  perhaps 
have  chosen  an  itinerary  different  from  the  one 
arranged  for  us  by  Veronica.  But  neither  she, 
nor  any  of  us,  had  such  an  end  in  view.  We 
saw  a  score  of  places  and  a  hundred  things  I 
have  not  even  mentioned,  and  we  had  many 
talks  I  have  not  set  down.  Where  we  went 
seemed,  to  all  but  Veronica's  directing  mind, 
sheer  haphazard ;  and  I  am  aware  that  this 
record  of  our  Autumn  rambling  is  of  the  same 
fortuitous  character.  The  persons  who  spare 
you  nothing,  in  telling  you  what  they  have  been 
doing,  and  what  has  happened  to  them,  are  gen- 
erally rather  tiresome.  It  would  take  far  more 
than  a  few  weeks  to  see  all  the  Haunts  of  An- 
cient Peace  in  our  Island,  and  many  a  volume 
to  describe  them.  We  were  three  days  on  the 
river ;  but  if  you  do  not  hurry  from  place  to 
place,  and  take  things  as  they  come,  and  row  or 
float  along  at  an  easy  unanxious  pace,  you  will 
traverse  many  a  reach,  and  will  round  many  a 
winding  curve,  that  to  the  curious  but  unloving 
eye  will  seem  samesome.  To  us  none  of  them 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  167 

seemed  so  ;  for  they  are  so  various  in  reality, 
and  we  were  so  thoroughly  in  the  mood  to 
appreciate  them  all.  Villages,  hamlets,  cathe- 
drals, abbey  ruins,  there  were  none  quite  on  the 
river  banks ;  but  in  our  smoothly  silent  course 
we  descried  many  a  country  seat,  abiding,  as  it 
had  abided  for  generations,  amid  its  woods ; 
many  a  church-tower  and  vicarage  or  rectory 
half  hidden  by  the  untrimmed  timber  that  lent 
it  further  beauty  and  dignity ;  many  a  farm- 
stead with  its  weather-ripened  roof,  its  newly 
thatched  yellow  stacks,  its  flocks,  herds,  and 
pastures.  We  passed  under  the  low  arches  of 
old  stone  bridges  as  picturesque  as  they  were 
unpretentious,  with  the  "  Trout,"  "  Maybush," 
or  "  Hawthorn  "  Inn,  at  either  end,  half  smoth- 
ered in  late  clambering  roses  or  rampant  honey- 
suckle ;  through  furlong  after  furlong  of  tall 
grasses,  reeds,  and  reed-mace,  with  willow-wrens, 
and  many  another  river-bird  diving  in  and  out 
of  them,  and  continuous  avenues  of  willow- 
weed  and  meadowsweet ;  and,  as  we  quietly 
rowed  past  one  of  these,  Lamia  repeated  to  us 
the  following  poem,  the  authorship  of  which 
will  easily  be  surmised : 


1 68          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 


WILLOWWEED   AND    MEADOWSWEET 


INTO  untethered  bark  we  stepped, 

When  the  winds  and  waters  slept, 

In  the  silvery-curtained  swoon 

Of  the  languid  afternoon, 

Floating  on  'twixt  shore  and  shore, 

Without  rudder,  sail,  or  oar ; 

Nothing  stirring,  nothing  doing, 

Save  white  clouds  white  clouds  pursuing, 

And  the  ringdove's  lovelong  cooing; 

Skirting  with  slow  swan-like  feet 

Willowweed  and  meadowsweet. 


So  we  glided,  on  and  on, 
Till  the  sunset  glow  was  gone, 
And  athwart  the  stirless  air 
Nothing  was  save  here  and  there 
Undulating  gossamer  ; 
Skirting  without  noise  or  speed 
Meadowsweet  and  willowweed. 


Then  the  twilight,  wimpled  nun, 
Lit  the  starlamps,  one  by  one, 
That  adoring  gaze  might  see 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  169 

Night's  mysterious  sanctuary, 

And  the  earth-bound  spirit  share 

In  the  heavenly  whispered  prayer 

Planet  unto  planet  saith, 

Prayer  of  trusting  love  and  faith. 

O,  if  Life  could  only  fleet 

'Twixt  willowweed  and  meadowsweet  ! 

The  first  day,  indeed  the  very  first  hour, 
of  our  journey,  Lamia  had  stipulated,  if  you 
remember,  that  we  should  see  and  concern  our- 
selves with  nothing  that  was  not  old.  It  was 
to  be  a  peaceful  excursion  through  Old  Eng- 
land. I  almost  think  our  halting-place  at  the 
end  of  the  first  day  of  our  betaking  ourselves 
to  the  water  fulfilled  her  Ideal  more  than  any 
other ;  while  the  Poet  frankly  said  it  came 
nearest  to  his,  and  Veronica  more  than  once 
declared  that  it  was  not  only  most  attractive, 
but  absolutely  faultless.  As  for  me,  when 
they  are  satisfied  so  am  I  ;  and,  if  I  were  not, 
it  would  be  immaterial.  It  counts,  at  most, 
some  fifteen  hundred  folk ;  and  its  squares, 
which  are  not  squares,  but  only  open  green 
spaces,  and  its  streets,  which  resemble  streets 
nowhere  else,  are  broad,  shady,  noiseless,  and 


170          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

spotlessly  clean.  I  have  never  seen  another  so 
sweet-smelling  an  assemblage  of  habitations ; 
and  its  one  Inn,  though  it  still  keeps  to  that 
modest  appellation,  can  take  in  a  fair  number 
of  guests,  for  it  is  a  fishing  headquarters  in 
the  angling  season,  and  is  withal  so  quiet  and 
homelike,  that  Lamia  expressed  a  desire  to  live 
there  always.  The  stream  that  draws  rod  and 
line  thither  in  the  Mayfly  season  and  the  four 
or  five  weeks  following,  flows  narrowly  and 
windingly  through  the  meadows  and  pastures 
south  of  the  little  town,  which  has  shops  just 
sufficient  to  supply  the  elementary  wants  of  life, 
and  no  more.  There  are  no  unlovely,  obtru- 
sive advertisements  to  call  attention  to  any- 
thing in  particular,  no  untidiness,  no  noise  for 
the  mere  sake  of  being  noisy.  Even  the  chil- 
dren, though  they  appear  as  happy,  and  as 
unconcerned  save  with  the  passing  moment, 
as  they  are  elsewhere,  run  and  skip  and  play 
without  unnecessary  shouting,  as  though  they 
also  had  a  half-conscious  feeling  of  the  sweet 
sanctity  of  the  place.  For  the  heart  and  soul 
of  it  is  the  Church,  which,  when  you  approach 
it  through  a  placid  God's-acre  of  weather- 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT   PEACE  171 

mellowed  tombstones  and  rose-bushes,  you 
declare  to  be  of  the  fifteenth  century,  till  you 
get  closer;  and  then,  if  you  are  in  ever  so 
small  a  way  skilled  in  such  matters,  you  per- 
ceive that  portions  of  it  belong  to  a  century 
earlier,  and,  finally,  you  surmise  that  some  of 
the  Tower  is  of  the  thirteenth,  and  find,  on 
due  scrutiny,  the  surmise  is  correct. 
"  Is  this  old  enough  for  you,  Lamia  ?  " 
"  Oh  yes  !  "  she  answered.  "  And  how  one 
wishes  one  had,  like  it,  lived  and  looked  on  life 
through  the  same  space  of  time  !  " 

"  And  so  you  have,"  said  the  Poet,  "  if,  as  I 
hope  and  believe,  you  have  often  communed,  in 
a  sufficiently  well-stocked  imagination,  with  this 
dear  land  of  ours  ever  since  the  days  of  Fair 
Rosamund.  What  an  absorbing  story  !  What 
a  long  and  varied  tale  of  tenderness  and 
strength,  of  poetry  and  statecraft,  of  undaunted 
men  and  entrancing  women,  of  young  Harrys 
with  their  beavers  on,  of  Percys,  Hotspurs,  and 
king-making  Warwicks,  of  Chaucer,  Spenser, 
Shakespeare,  and  all  their  offspring  touched  with 
hallowed  fire,  of  saints  and  holy  worshippers  too 
good  and  meek  and  pious  ever  to  have  been 


172          HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

heard  of  save  in  the  locality  and  time  they  re- 
deemed with  their  goodness,  of  duty-fulfilling 
country  squires,  burly  yeomen,  law-revering 
burghers,  well-fed,  steadfast-working,  sound- 
sleeping  labourers,  disorder-detesting  house- 
wives, and  happy,  mischievous,  but  not 
disobedient  children ;  a  world  of  folk  un- 
commonly like  the  best  of  ourselves  to-day !  " 
But,  time-obliterating  as  the  old  Church  is 
to  linger  in,  alike  without  and  within,  its  chief 
treasure,  on  which  the  gaze  soon  gets  fastened, 
is  its  stained  glass,  the  date  and  story  whereof 
even  the  most  erudite  can  only  guess  at. 
There  are  legends  and  traditions  concerning 
it;  but  to  us,  more  anxious  to  feel  than  to 
know,  to  love  than  to  learn,  save  in  respect 
of  such  learning  as  loving  can  impart,  the 
haziness  of  these  was  not  only  immaterial,  but 
what  we  preferred.  In  silence  we  looked  on, 
in  silence  we  contemplated,  each  window  in  suc- 
cession, each  compartment,  and  square,  and 
lead-framed  circle  and  curve,  perfect  here,  im- 
perfect there  from  injury  or  loss,  here  restored, 
there  in  colour  wanting  altogether,  where  sur- 
mise concerning  the  original  had  wholly  failed. 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          173 

It  seems  incredible  that  any  one  should  ever 
have  been  so  consumed  with  acrimonious  zeal 
as  to  desire  to  destroy  things  so  beautiful ; 
beautiful  of  their  kind,  we  all  declared,  beyond 
anything  we  had  seen  at  Spoleto,  or  indeed 
anywhere  south  of  the  Alps.  But  thus  runs 
the  story :  that,  in  order  to  save  the  glass  from 
the  fury  of  inconoclastic  frenzy,  it  was  re- 
moved, carefully  hidden,  and  only  placed  here 
again  when  the  flames  of  fanaticism  had  some- 
what died  down.  I  remember,  especially,  one 
peculiarly  touching  figure  in  the  rendering  of 
"The  Last  Judgment,"  long  anterior  to  Michel- 
angelo in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and  not  so  much 
later  than  that  attributed  to  Orcagna  in  Santa 
Maria  Novella  in  Florence.  It  was  that  of 
Mary  Magdalen,  kneeling  in  prayer  before  a 
Crucifix,  in  Purgatory,  with  her  golden  hair 
falling  over  her  shoulders,  so  transported  by 
her  devotions  that  not  only  was  she  insensible 
to  Purgatorial  pains,  but  was  not  even  aware 
that  the  hour  of  pardon  and  peace  had  come. 
But  an  angel  is  on  his  way  to  touch  and  tell 
her,  and  to  summon  her  to  go  to  Him  who  said, 
"  Her  sins  are  forgiven,  for  she  loved  much." 


i74          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

As  at  last  we  passed  out  of  this  holy  place, 
slowly  and  reluctantly,  a  stranger  who  was  about 
to  enter  it,  looked  hard,  as  the  saying  is,  at  the 
Poet,  and  then  addressed  him : 

"  You  and  your  friends  are,  I  guess,  indeed  I 
know,  native  to  this  lovely  island  of  yours. 
Perhaps  you  perceive  I  am  not."  That  was 
just  perceptible  in  an  intonation  slightly  dif- 
ferent from  ours,  but  quite  as  good  in  its  own 
way,  and  always  welcome  to  the  wisely  listening 
ear,  for  it  tells  of  a  kindred  people  who  speak 
the  same  tongue  as  ours ;  and  who,  though 
born  and  reared  so  far  away,  think  much  the 
same  things,  and  would  fain  fashion  the  world 
in  much  the  same  manner.  "  I  have  come,  not 
for  the  first  time,  to  wander  through  the  old 
country,  where  we  find  so  much  we  like  and 
long  for,  and  have  not  yet  got  at  home.  Of 
all  the  places  I  have  seen,  I  think  this  one  gives 
me,  and  the  members  of  my  family,  who  are 
about  somewhere,  the  most  complete  and  com- 
pact impression,  so  to  say,  of  what  I  mean,  and 
I  suspect  you  mean,  by  England.  Ha  !  Here 
they  are !  " 

As  he  said  it,  two  alert,  attractive-looking 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  175 

girls,  a  young  fellow  radiating  intelligence,  and 
a  sweet-faced  seriously  gazing  woman  of  middle 
years,  evidently  their  mother,  turned  an  angle 
of  the  church,  and  joined  us. 

"  Here  are  my  girls,"  he  said  ;  "  my  son,  who 
is  having  the  only  holiday  he  will  have  for  a 
long  time,  and  last  but  not  least,  anyway  to 
me,  their  mother." 

Thereupon  Veronica,  on  her  side,  was 
equally  communicative,  and  we  all  fell  to 
talking. 

"  Yes,  sir,  we  all  feel  it,"  said  our  new  ac- 
quaintance before  we  parted.  <c  We  love  our 
own  country,  and  we  are  proud  of  it ;  some  of 
us,  as  I  daresay  some  of  you  are,  perhaps  a 
little  too  proud.  But  the  old  country  has  got 
one  thing  the  new  one  has  not,  but  which  we 
feel  as  much  as  you  do,  maybe  more,  because 
we  have  not  got  it,  charm,  the  charm  of  ancient- 
ness,  of  having  a  lot  behind  it,  of  having  been 
in  the  world  a  long,  long  time." 

"  Yet,"  said  Lamia,  who  overheard  the  words, 
though  most  of  her  attention  had  been  claimed 
by  the  daughters,  "  here  are  two  members  of 
your  family  that  have  not  been  very  long  in 


176         HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE 

the  world,  yet  are  not  without  the  spell  of 
which  you  speak  so  tenderly." 

"  I  guess,"  said  their  father,  "  that  must  be, 
Miss,  because,  at  some  time  or  another  a  little 
way  back,  they  had  the  same  forbears  as 
you." 

"  That  may  conceivably  be,"  said  the  Poet ; 
"  but  we  are  quite  ready  to  believe,  as  we  are 
in  the  habit  of  thinking,  it  is  entirely  of  native 
growth  in  your  own  land.  We  see  so  many 
of  your  women  folk  who  are  charming,  and  I 
have  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  a  number 
of  your  men  whose  minds  are  equally  so." 

"  I  see  you  understand  us,"  was  the  reply, 
"if  perhaps  a  bit  poetically.  But  I  want  to 
say  a  word  to  you  before  we  take  farewell.  I 
want  to  thank  you,  sir,  not  for  myself  only, 
but  for  a  number  of  my  countrymen,  for  some- 
thing you  once  wrote,  it  must  now  be  hard  on 
five  years  ago.  As  far  as  I  know,  it  was  the 
first  clear  English  expression  of  an  earnest 
desire  that  your  country  and  ours  should  be 
right  down  good  friends,  and  always  pull  to- 
gether. It  might  sound  presumptuous  if  I 
expressed  any  opinion  as  to  the  literary  quality 


HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE          177 

of  what  you  said.  But  it  went  straight  home 
to  the  hearts  of  thousands  of  our  people." 

"  I  had,"  said  the  Poet,  "  many  most  kindly 
letters  from  your  country  concerning  it." 

"  I  just  guess  you  had.  But  what  I  most 
want  to  say  to  you  is  this."  Here  he  grasped 
the  Poet's  hand.  "  I  know  you  are  an  out-and- 
out  Britisher,  from  kernel  to  crackle  ;  and  so  I 
tell  you  that,  though  I  think,  after  the  sample 
the  people  of  the  British  Isles  and  all  your 
fellow-folk  beyond  the  Seas  have  recently  given 
the  world  of  their  mettle,  there  is  no  Power, 
nor  combine  of  powers,  will  be  in  a  mighty 
hurry  to  tackle  you,  for  any  reason  whatever, 
and  what  is  more,  if  they  did,  you  and  yours 
would,  I  suspect,  be  more  than  a  match  for 
them.  Yet,  if  they  did,  and  you  seemed  to  be 
for  a  moment  in  a  tight  place,  just  you  wire  a 
rhyme  or  two  under  the  two  or  three  thousand 
miles  of  water  that  join,  not  separate,  us ;  and 
if  the  Old  Country's  cause  be,  as  I  don't  doubt 
it  would  be,  a  just  one,  and  one  making  for 
freedom  and  what's  right,  Northern  grit,  South- 
ern chivalry,  and  Backwoods  ready-handedness 
will  come  to  you,  and  see  you  through  with 


178          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

it ;  for  we  know  you  would  do  the  same  by 
us." 

"  Be  quite  sure,"  said  the  Poet,  "  we 
should." 

Then  cordial  farewells  were  spoken  all  round  ; 
and  the  last  words  uttered  were  by  the  young 
girls  of  Lamia. 

"  Isn't  she  just  lovely  ?  " 

By  which  we  all  understood  that  they  meant, 
as  the  words  would  have  meant  with  us  in 
Elizabethan  days,  that  Lamia  was  beyond  words 
lovable. 


So  we  journeyed  on  peacefully  through  a 
land  of  peace,  that  seemed  to  have  been  there 
from  all  time,  and  as  though  it  would  for  all 
time  endure ;  a  land  that  changes  so  slowly 
and  so  gradually  that  it  hardly  seems  to  change 
at  all,  and  to  have  behind  its  Present,  whose 
movement  is  but  the  regularly  recurring  round 
of  the  rustic  seasons,  a  great  back-ground  of  the 
silent  Past,  from  which  it  is  directly  descended, 
say,  since  the  days  of  Alfred,  who  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  orderly  and  law-respecting 


HAUNTS    OF   ANCIENT    PEACE  179 

England  we  know  to-day.  To  us,  moving 
through  it  thus  tranquilly,  contentedly,  it  ap- 
peared all  the  more  peaceful,  because  of  the 
world-wide  Imperial  Peace  that  had  lately  been 
concluded.  We  needed  to  see  no  news-sheets; 
for  strife,  victories,  reverses,  resolute  will  that 
obliterated  the  one,  and  harvested  the  fruit 
of  the  other,  together  with  thanksgiving  Cere- 
monials for  deliverance  from  War,  for  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  Reign,  and  the  acclaimed 
home-coming  of  patient  intrepid  warriors,  now 
lay  behind  us,  and  the  most  important  things 
in  life  were  again  sunshine  and  fair  weather, 
the  record  of  harvested  fields  and  swelling 
roots,  and  the  domestic  happiness  of  man- 
kind. We  passed  through  hamlets  nestl'ng 
in  hollow  or  ascending  hill-slope,  with  their 
comely  old-fashioned  cottages  set  back  a  little 
way  from  the  road,  and  their  strips  and 
squares  of  bright-looking  sweet-smelling  gar- 
dens. Sometimes  we  stayed  our  steps,  to 
enter  country  churches  in  whose  contempla- 
tive interiors  preparations  were  being  made 
to  celebrate  the  conclusion  of  Harvest.  In- 
side their  porches  was  a  notification  that  on 


i8o          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT   PEACE 

such  and  such  a  day  a  Harvest  Home  Festi- 
val would  be  held  in  the  old  Tithe  Barn. 
Fruit,  vegetables,  and  little  golden  sheaves  of 
newly  ripened  wheat  or  oats  were  deftly  inter- 
twined with  autumn  flowers,  and  were  looped 
round  pulpit  or  drooped  in  graceful  festoons 
from*  porch  to  pillar.  In  their  churchyards, 
haunts  indeed  of  ancient  peace,  there  seemed  to 
be  more  gardens  than  graves,  which  led  Lamia 
to  remind  us  of  the  following  lines  : 

Let  not  the  roses  lie 

Too  thickly  tangled  round  my  tomb, 
Lest  fleecy  clouds  that  skim  the  summer  sky, 
Flinging  their  faint  soft  shadows,  pass  it  by, 

And  know  not  over  whom. 

And  let  not  footsteps  come 

Too  frequent  to  my  couch  of  rest. 

Should  I  —  who  knoweth  ?  —  not  be  deaf,  though  dumb, 
Bird's  idle  pipe,  or  bee's  laborious  hum, 

Would  suit  me,  listening,  best. 

And,  pray  you,  do  not  hew 

Words  to  excite  a  smile  or  sneer  ; 
But  only  carve,  at  least  if  they  be  true, 
These  simple  words,  or  some  such,  and  as  few, 

"  He  whom  we  loved,  lies  here." 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          181 

And  if  you  will  but  so 

This  last  request  of  mine  fulfil, 
I  will  be  mindful  of  your  joy  and  woe, 
And,  if  I  can  but  help  you  where  I  go, 

Be  sure,  fond  friends,  I  will. 

In  some  of  the  villages  through  which  we 
passed  at  a  foot's  pace,  lest  we  should  lose  any- 
thing of  their  unobtrusive  beauty,  it  was  the 
electoral  day  for  some  Parish  Council  or  Board 
of  Guardians,  and,  during  the  dinner  hour,  la- 
bouring voters  were  passing  in  and  out  of  the 
polling-places ;  but  it  was  all  done  so  quietly 
that  it  needed  to  know  something  of  the  kindly, 
practical  temperament  of  our  reasonable  race,  to 
be  aware  that  anything  beyond  the  ordinary 
routine  of  hamlet  life  was  going  on.  In  many 
of  them  was  a  row  of  old-world  alms-houses, 
having  on  them  some  suggestive  far-off  date, 
of  Elizabethan  or  Jacobean  days  ;  and,  outside 
them,  on  bench  or  settle,  sate  among  bee-hives 
and  dahlias  old  men  who  seemed  to  have  been 
born  much  about  the  same  time.  The  mellow 
tranquillity  of  autumn  appeared  to  have  fallen 
even  upon  the  children,  who  were  less  obstrep- 
erously voiceful  than  is  their  wont.  Perhaps 


1 82          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

it  was  that  Autumn  had  brought  them  an  un- 
usual amount  of  fruit  to  occupy  themselves 
with,  pears,  apples,  plums,  nuts,  and  blackber- 
ries. Many  a  healthy  little  face,  and  carefully 
washed,  tenderly-trimmed  pinafore,  was  stained, 
but  in  no  way  spoilt,  by  the  crimson  juice  of 
these,  in  rambling  among  which  they  had  doubt- 
less passed  a  goodly  part  of  the  morning ;  and 
the  sight  of  them  made  one  long  to  be  young 
again  oneself,  and  to  go  blackberrying  in  the 
meandering  meadow-bordering  lanes.  There 
was  not  a  village,  and  scarcely  a  house,  we  passed, 
but  had  its  clambering  vine,  and  bright  little 
territory  of  flowers.  The  feudal  fronts  of  the 
proud,  and  the  honeysuckled  porches  of  the 
lowly,  all  alike  seemed  Haunts  of  Ancient 
Peace,  all  dwelling  comely  and  secure,  under 
the  gentle,  unfelt,  but  continuing  and  irresis- 
tible rule  of  the  paternal  Past. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  * 
"  I  suppose,"  said  Lamia,  "  I  am  like  the 
occupants  of  our  stables.  Constantly  fidgeting 
to  leave  their  stalls,  they  are  yet  more  anxious 
to  return  to  them.  So,  after  three  weeks  of 
vagrant  enjoyment,  I  return,  with  something 


HAUNTS   OF  ANCIENT   PEACE          183 

more   than   resignation,  to  the    Garden   That 
We  Love." 

The  above  was  in  answer  to  the  reminder, 
on  my  part,  of  her  professed  weariness  with  it ; 
for,  now  more  than  any  of  us,  she  seemed  to 
rejoice  in  our  home-coming  and  our  return  to 
the  stationary  seclusion  that  is  our  usual  con- 
dition. We  found  less  change  than  I  had  ex- 
pected ;  partly  perhaps  because  the  season  had 
moved  on  without  either  parching  heat  or 
injurious  rain,  and  partly,  maybe,  because  our 
home  somehow  has  an  air  of  having  always 
been  there,  and  it  needs  the  revolutionary 
winter  months  noticeably  to  change  it.  In  a 
well-ordered  garden,  where  foresight  is  habitu- 
ally present,  the  ostensible  difference  between 
what  it  looks  like  at  the  beginning  of  Septem- 
ber, and  then  again  towards  Michaelmas,  is  but 
slight.  The  colours  perhaps  are  richer  and 
riper  at  the  later  than  the  earlier  date,  and  it 
requires  an  eye  very  observant  of  detail  to  note 
that  Autumn  is  of  her  hectic  beauty  dying. 
The  weather  was  still  warm  and  windless,  and 
we  could  sit  out  without  any  feeling  of  damp 
or  discomfort,  and  talk  over  all  we  had  seen. 


1 84          HAUNTS   OF   ANCIENT    PEACE 

"It  is  so,"  said  the  Poet,  echoing  a  declara- 
tion of  Veronica's,  that,  of  all  lands,  England  is 
the  most  delightful  to  roam  about  in.  "  There 
is  in  it  all  one  wants :  beauty,  variety,  comeli- 
ness, commodiousness,  hill  and  valley,  meadow, 
cornfield,  and  pasture ;  park,  woodland,  home- 
stead, here  splendid,  there  simple,  both  equally 
appealing  to  the  imagination  and  the  affections  ; 
stream,  river,  ruin,  lake,  hamlet,  cathedral,  wide 
wild  uncultivated  spaces,  commons  of  golden 
gorse,  rustic  inns,  rectories  and  alms-houses, 
honest  and  not  ill-paid  labour,  happy-looking 
cottages,  a  kindly  and  contented  people. 
Above  all,  it  has  the  abiding  charm  of  that 
Ancientness  we  went  forth,  at  Lamia's  wish,  to 
see,  and  which  we  found  in  such  abundance. 
Dear,  old,  but  withal  ever  youthful,  England! 
pondering  on  the  Past,  but  ready  for  resolute 
action,  should  danger  or  difficulty  call  for  it. 
It  is  a  Haunt  of  Ancient  Peace.  May  it  ever 
remain  so ! " 


THE  GARDEN  THAT  I  LOVE 

By  ALFRED  AUSTIN 

POET   LAUREATE 

Cloth.       Crown  8vo.       $2.50 
With  Fourteen  Illustrations 


" '  The  Garden  that  I  Love,'  by  Alfred  Austin,  is  the  work  of  a  poet,  artist,  and  gar- 
dener, who,  having  had  the  great  luck  to  meet  with  an  ideal  house,  surrounded  it  with 
an  ideal  garden.  How  this  house  and  garden  formed  a  convenient  meeting  place  for 
'  friends  in  council,'  and  what  these  friends  said  and  did,  till  the  garden  that  they  loved 
became  the  garden  in  which  they  loved,  and  the  happy  termination  of  their  labours  and 
loves,  is  most  pleasantly  told  by  Mr.  Austin." —  Guardian. 

"  Scarcely  has  the  reader  got  through  half  a  dozen  pages  of  this  bright  little  book 
before  he  finds  himself  on  terms  of  close  friendship  with  the  author.  Mr.  Austin  takes 
you  at  once  into  his  confidence  —  or  at  least  he  appears  to  do  so :  he  tells  you  by  what 
good  fortune  he  chanced  to  light  upon  his  rural  retreat;  he  lets  you  pry  into  the  details 
of  his  domestic  arrangements;  and  then,  taking  you  kindly  by  the  hand,  goes  with  you 
round  the  Garden  that  he  Loves.  Month  after  month,  from  April  till  October,  he  depicts 
his  garden  in  varying  phase;  but,  whatever  its  aspect,  he  somehow  contrives  to  make 
the  reader  a  partner  in  the  simple  pleasure  which  it  yields.  It  is  true  that  one  is  never 
quite  sure,  when  listening  to  a  poet,  how  far  his  descriptions  are  a  direct  reflex  of  the 
concrete,  and  how  far  the  creation  of  his  own  imaginings.  But  no  matter:  whether  real 
or  imaginary,  Mr.  Austin's  descriptions  of  his  garden  are  equally  delightful.  .  .  .  The 
volume  is  one  which  will  be  heartily  enjoyed  by  every  cultured  reader.  He  who  opens 
its  pages  shall  find  enshrined  in  them  many  a  sage  apophthegm,  many  a  sparkling  bit 
of  dialogue,  and  many  a  verse  of  tenderness  and  grace."  —  Academy. 

"  The  freshness  of  the  morning  sunlight,  the  perfume  of  the  flowers,  the  songs  of  the 
birds,  the  sense  of  tranquil  leisure,  are  in  this  volume  side  by  side  with  the  companionship 
of  pleasant  women  and  of  books,  an  air  of  culture,  a  gay  philosophy  of  life,  a  dash  of  old- 
fashioned  gallantry,  and  the  give  and  take  of  happy  humour.  .  .  .  There  is  much  else 
in  the  book  over  which  we  could  gladly  linger;  for  neither  the  Garden  that  was  Loved,  nor 
the  love  that  was  returned  in  its  privacy  of  shade,  exhaust  the  charm  of  this  wholesome, 
imaginative,  and  genial  outlook  on  nature  and  on  life."  —  Standard. 

"  Mr.  Austin's  good  fortune  has  proved  the  exceeding  good  fortune  of  his  readers;  for 
never  surely  was  the  sense  of  the  blessed  beneficence  of  a  garden,  its  boon  of  peace  and 
refreshment  to  the  spirit,  expounded  with  more  winning  charm,  or  with  more  delicate 
truth  of  sentiment,  than  in  this  intimate  and  tender  discourse  about  the  Garden  that  he 
Loves.  In  no  kind  of  writing,  perhaps,  than  in  this  is  it  easier  to  miss  just  that  nuance 
of  tone  and  treatment  that  makes  the  difference  between  literature  and  twaddle.  In  these 


us  long  for  more ;  and  the  snatches  of  verse  introduced  are  in  themselves  most  exquisite  — 
it  may  be  that  their  charm  is  heightened  by  their  setting,  but  one  does  not  remember 
verse  of  Mr.  Austin's  that  has  charmed  one  more.  There  is  sentiment  enough  to  give 
life  to  the  garden  lore,  and  enough  garden  lore  to  give  character  to  the  sentiment.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Austin  has  seldom  given  us  anything  better  than  this  delightful  book.  It  is  certainly 
one  not  to  be  missed  by  any  lover  of  Nature  —  or  any  lover  of  graceful  and  charming 
prose."  —  St.  James's  Gazette. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


IN  VERONICA'S  GARDEN 

By  ALFRED    AUSTIN 

POET   LAUREATE 

Cloth.       Crown  8vo.        $2.50 

With  Fourteen  Illustrations 

"  Those  who  wander  with  Mr.  Alfred  Austin  in  '  Veronica's  Garden '  will  be  glad  to 
find  that  it  is  none  other  than  the  Garden  that  he  Loves.  Not  only  is  the  place  the 
same,  but  the  company  remains  unchanged.  Veronica  is  here  again  with  her  grave 
imperiousness  and  sweet  addiction  to  household  cares,  and  the  playful  Lamia  is  by  her 
side  trembling  in  mock  earnest  at  her  nod.  He  who  tells  the  tale  —  the  Keeper,  shall  we 
call  him?  of  the  pleasaunce  —  has  lost  nothing  of  his  meditative  delight  in  the  infinite 
mutations  of  its  loveliness,  and  the  Poet  comes  back  from  Italy  full  of  apt  Virgilian  learn- 
ing, and  ready  at  every  turn  to  burst  into  English  song  that  has  a  classic  grace  and 
freshness  of  its  own.  How  much  is  fancy  and  how  much  portraiture?  Where  does  the 
writer  put  himself  into  his  record,  and  where  is  he  content,  with  dainty  dramatic  touch, 
to  furnish  side  lights  to  the  picture  of  sincere  and  enthusiastic  feeling?  These  are  ques- 
tions we  do  not  care  to  ask,  even  if  we  believed  that  we  could  give  dogmatic  answers. 
The  mind  must  be  singularly  ill-attuned  to  the  finer  spirit  of  the  workmanship,  which 
worries  itself  with  analysis  of  this  sort.  It  is  enough  to  accept  the  volume  gratefully  as 
a  delightful  blending  of  the  results  of  delicate  observation  and  subtle  thought  with  humour 
both  kindly  and  refined.  The  dignity  and  rhythmical  melodiousness  of  the  prose  would 
tell  us,  if  we  did  not  know  in  other  ways,  that  the  writer  of  this  volume  is  a  poet."  — 
Standard. 

"  Mr.  Austin,  in  giving  us  this  book,  has  essayed  to  do  an  exquisite  thing  twice,  and 
though  some,  who  like  to  nave  enjoyed  their  sensation  and  be  done  with  it,  may  grumble, 
others  will  thank  him  for  this  further  instalment  of  quiet  days  and  quiet  ways.  The 
charm  of  his  subject  lies  upon  the  book,  so  that  even  the  list  of  flower-names  becomes 
fragrant.  .  .  .  A  delightful  book."—  Speaker. 

"  This  delightful  volume  has  the  full  and  fresh  charm  of '  The  Garden  that  I  Love.' "  — 
St.  James's  Budget. 

"  A  delightful  book,  which  will  be  cordially  welcomed  by  those  who  enjoyed  '  The 
Garden  that  I  Love.'  It  has  no  mission,  settles  no  problems,  and  is  content  to  be 
charming,  simple,  and  pleasure-giving."  —  National  Review. 

"Mr.  Alfred  Austin,  in  'Veronica's  Garden,'  continues  his  praises  of  'The  Garden 
that  I  Love.'  Once  more  he  celebrates  the  delights  of  that  secluded  spot,  the  high  walls 
of  which  shut  out  the '  ephemeral  fret,  fume,  and  turmoil  of  to-day,'  and  enclose  a  thousand 
simple  enchantments;  once  more  in  those  shaded  walks  and  radiant  borders  we  meet  the 
perverse  and  lovely  Lamia,  the  solicitous  Veronica,  the  Poet  whose  verse  gives  the  kin- 
dling touch  that  draws  us  into  closer  amity  with  the  life  of  nature.  Again  it  is  the  lover 
and  tender  of  the  garden  that  is  the  narrator.  White  of  Selborne  was  not  more  precise 
than  is  Mr.  Austin  in  noting  the  advent  and  ways  of  the  blossoms  and  birds,  or  in  observing 
the  wayward,  laggard,  or  hurrying  steps  of  the  season.  The  friends  converse  on  many 
themes,  — on  art,  on  the  philosophy  of  life;  their  banter  is  gay  and  genial,  their  gravity 
never  deepens  into  gloom.  The  poet  quotes  much  from  his  favourite  Virgil,  and  sings  in 
graceful  lyrics  of  the  simple  things  of  nature,  of  love,  of  friendship,  lie  is  the  same 
gentle  Conservative  and  patriot;  the  old  faiths,  the  old  ways,  are  dear  to  him, 
And  every  wildling  bird  and  leaf 
That  gladdens  English  lanes. 

His  verse  has  the  sincerity  and  spontaneity  the  talk  of  the  friends  sometimes  lacks ;  and 
the  note  rings  true  that  tells, 

I  would  live  nestled  near  my  kind, 

Deep  in  a  garden  garth, 
That  they  who  loved  my  verse  might  find 

A  pathway  to  my  hearth. 

The  beautiful  old  manor  house  and  the  garden  are  charmingly  represented  in  the  illustra- 
tions by  A.  Kohl  and  O.  Lacour."  —  Daily  Newt. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


LAMIA'S  WINTER  QUARTERS 

A   SEQUEL  TO  "THE   GARDEN   THAT   I  LOVE" 
By  ALFRED    AUSTIN 

POET  LAUREATE 

Cloth.       Crown  8vo.       $3.50 

With  Fourteen  Illustrations 


"  Its  imaginative  atmosphere,  its  feeling  and  suggestion,  are,  as  in  the 
case  of  its  predecessor,  in  the  highest  degree  poetic;  and  the  grace  and 
wit  and  wisdom  of  its  prose  narrative  and  colloquies  are  diversified  by 
lyrics  of  singular  sweetness  and  charm.  .  .  .  These  idyllic  colloquies 
under  an  Italian  sky  form  a  rich  and  effective  setting  for  the  lyrical  jewels 
with  which  they  are  studded.  .  .  .  Gems  of  verse."  —  Literature. 

"  Great  charm."  —  Times. 

"  From  the  poetical '  Invocation  '  addressed  to  the  Queen,  with  which  the 
book  begins,  to  the  lyric,  '  Good  Night,'  with  which  it  ends,  the  volume  is 
charming.  We  have  here  all  Mr.  Austin's  suavity  of  diction  and  delicacy 
of  sentiment,  the  artistic  pleasure  in  the  beautiful,  the  true  poet's  delight 
in  Italy,  which,  taken  together,  make  a  piece  of  prose  which,  in  its  way, 
...  is  as  near  perfect  as  may  be."  —  St.  James's  Gazette. 

"  Charming  verses."  —  Spectator. 

"  We  are  never  bored  throughout  all  these  delightful  pages.  We  live 
on  a  level  of  distinguished  thoughts,  expressed  with  elegance  and  refine- 
ment."—  Daily  Telegraph, 

"The  poetical  atmosphere  of  the  book,  with  its  fresh  sympathy  for 
Italian  scenery,  rural  life,  and  manners,  makes  it  delightful  reading.  Over 
and  above  all  this,  there  are  the  lyrics  and  pastoral  poems,  which,  thanks 
to  the  interposition  of  the  poet,  brighten  these  pages  and  include  some  of 
the  choicest  pieces  which  have  fallen  from  Mr.  Austin's  pen." — Daily  News. 

"A  most  exquisite  book.  We  prefer  it  even  to  'The  Garden  that  I 
Love.'  Some  of  the  lyrics  may  bear  comparison  with  the  best  lyrical  pro- 
ductions of  Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  or  Browning."  —  Westminster  Review. 

"The  third  member  of  a  delightful  series.  Neither  in  'The  Garden 
that  I  Love '  nor  in  '  In  Veronica's  Garden '  was  Mr.  Austin  better  in- 
spired." —  Literary  World. 

"  Mr.  Austin's  best  descriptive  and  reflective  manner."  —  Standard. 
"Full  of  fascinating  Nature-pictures."  —  Leeds  Mercury. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW   YORK 


Elizabeth  and  Her  German  Garden 


Illustrated  Edition.    Crown  8vo.    Cloth  extra.    $2.50 
Regular  Edition.     Crown  8vo.    Cloth.    $1.75 
Cheap  Edition.    i6mo.    Cloth.    50  cents 


A  new  edition,  containing  considerable  matter  not  included 
in  the  original  issue,  and  illustrated  with  a  large  number  of 
full-page  photogravure  plates. 

These  illustrations  are  from  photographs  taken  in  and  about 
the  garden,  and  will  be  found  to  form  a  most  interesting  and 
raluable  accompaniment  to  the  text. 


"What  a  captivating  book  it  is  —  how  merry  and  gentle  and 
sunny,  how  whimsically  wise  and  tender  !  There  is  real  humor  in 
these  pages,  and  for  that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  it  deserves  to  live. 
The  new  chapter,  describing  the  author's  pious  pilgrimage  to  the 
garden  of  her  childhood,  is  inimitable  in  its  way,  and  should  not  be 
missed  by  any  admirer  of  this  most  winning  Elizabeth." 

—  New  York  Tribune. 

"  Elizabeth  is  pure  sunshine  and  without  a  shadow,  the  reflection, 
as  it  were,  of  a  quiet  existence,  and  never  a  commonplace  one ;  for, 
without  knowing  it  or  suspecting  it,  she  is  an  idealist.  Elizabeth 
never  tires,  for  has  she  not  her  husband,  her  little  ones,  and  her 
books  to  talk  about?  These  passages,  as  found  in  ' Elizabeth'  in 
the  quiet  history  of  a  woman's  life,  act  as  useful  tonics  or  are  the 
necessary  sedatives  in  our  somewhat  fevered  existence." 

—  New  York  Times. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


The  Solitary  Summer 

BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF 
'ELIZABETH  AND   HER  GERMAN    GARDEN,"  ETC. 


Illustrated  Edition.      Crown  8vo.      Cloth  extra.     $2.50 
Regular  Edition.     Crown  8vo.     Cloth.     $1.50 


" '  The  Solitary  Summer '  affords  a  generous  harvest  of  beautiful 
and  poetic  thoughts,  together  with  some  keen  observations  of  life, 
all  of  which  are  expressed  in  a  graceful  and  supple  prose.  ...  It 
is  a  privilege  to  have  stood  for  a  time  upon  the  veranda  steps  and 
to  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  that  sane  refuge."  —  Chicago  Tribune. 

"  Full  of  sunshine  and  fresh  breezes,  riotous  with  the  bloom  and 
fragrance  of  flowers,  spicy  with  the  damp  cool  breath  of  pines.  .  .  . 
The  quaint,  whimsical  fancies  of  a  cultivated,  lovable  woman  create 
a  golden  atmosphere  through  which  we  see  her  life,  and  we  dream 
with  her  on  her  bench  in  her  garden,  in  the  fields  where  the  yellow 
lupins  grow,  and  in  the  mossy  deeps  of  the  pine  forest.  We  feel 
we  have  made  another  friend,  one  who  sees  life  with  gentle,  smiling 
eyes  and  from  a  deliciously  humorous  point  of  view."  —  Recreation. 

"  A  garden  of  absorbing  interest  to  its  owner,  a  library  full  of  books 
to  comfort  rainy  days,  a  hamlet  of  German  peasants,  three  delightful 
babies,  and  a  '  man  of  wrath '  who  by  no  means  merits  the  title,  — 
these  are  the  simple  elements  from  which  a  bright  woman,  too  cos- 
mopolitan to  be  thought  wholly  German,  as  she  calls  herself,  has 
evolved  a  charming  little  book."  —  The  Nation. 

"  She  has  a  depth  of  feeling,  a  sense  of  humor,  and  an  impetuous 
and  ardent  manner  that  make  her  chronicles  thoroughly  alive. 
Beside  this  lovable  book  other  feminine  essays  on  nature,  literature, 
and  life  seem  only  tame  and  artificial  performances." 

—  New  York  Tribune. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


JESS 

BITS   OF   WAYSIDE   GOSPEL 

By  JENKIN  LLOYD  JONES 

Cloth.     i2mo.     $1.50 


"  There  is  much  that  is  likable  and  admirable  in  this  book,  and  it 
would  be  well  if  more  of  its  kind  could  be  written.  The  spirit  of  the 
author  is  the  sort  of  influence  which  ought  to  shape  American  life." 
—  The  Times,  Washington. 

"  The  author  calls  them  '  out-of-doors  sermons,'  and  if  all  sermons 
that  we  hear  indoors  were  like  them,  the  power  of  the  pulpit  would 
not  be  the  discredited  thing  it  now  is.  ...  From  the  opening 
paper  ...  he  never  fails  to  teach  the  great  lesson  of  'the  things 
that  matter.'  Such  an  essay  as  that  in  this  volume  on  '  The  Peace 
of  God '  is  alone  worth  the  price  of  the  book."  —  News  and  Courier, 
Charleston. 

"  Full  of  light,  of  sweetness,  of  love,  not  large  or  pretentious  in 
any  way."  —  Toledo  Daily  Blade. 

"  The  author's  keen  observation  and  wholesome  liking  for  all  living 
things  are  delightful,  and  he  has  a  rare  talent  for  infusing  wit  and 
interest  into  situations  that  to  a  person  of  smaller  soul  would  be 
dully  commonplace.  He  does  not  go  out  of  his  way  to  narrate 
abnormal  occurrences.  Still,  many  of  his  descriptions  are  of  places 
deep  buried  from  the  ordinary  paths  of  travel,  and  all  of  them  are 
fresh  and  pleasant.  But  whatever  scenes  he  has  chosen,  he  has  put 
a  zest,  a  largeness,  into  humble  life  that  make  his  accounts  most 
practical  and  restful  and  desirable."  —  The  Beacon,  Boston. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH   AVENUE,   NEW  YORK. 


A   SEARCH   FOR   AN   INFIDEL 

BITS  OF   WAYSIDE   GOSPEL 

SECOND   SERIES 

By  JENKIN    LLOYD    JONES 
Cloth.    i2mo.    $1.50 


"  Jenkin  Lloyd  Jones,  who  not  long  ago  sent  among  the  readers  of  the 
world  his  '  Jess,  Bits  of  Wayside  Gospel,'  has  turned  out  another  equally 
interesting,  instructive,  and  refreshing  book.  .  .  .  No  reader  who  starts 
in  this  '  Search  for  an  Infidel '  will  fail  to  be  richer  in  the  appreciation 
of  what  we  call  vacation  time  by  what  he  captures,  even  if  he  does  not 
come  up  with  the  Infidel."  —  Brooklyn  Eagle. 

"  Human,  natural,  hopeful,  gladsome,  abounding  in  sunshine,  agreeable 
rather  than  inspiring,  a  book  of  recreation  rather  than  of  preparation  for 
strenuous  endeavour,  a  charming  Sunday  companion  for  summer  under  the 
trees."  —  The  Outlook. 

"It  is  a  book  to  read  and  reread;  a  book  to  keep  and  to  give  away,  a 
book  to  stir  one's  heart  and  make  life  seem  the  more  worth  the  living." 

—  Farm,  Field,  and  Fireside. 

"  Whether  the  dweller  in  the  city,  who  only  hungers  for  the  sight  and 
the  heart-to-heart  companionship  of  meadows  and  mountains,  or  the 
country  denizen  will  get  most  enjoyment  and  most  good  from  the  wayside 
essays,  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  At  any  rate,  both  will  find  the  book 
singularly  sincere,  simple,  hearty,  and  wholesome."  —  Chicago  Post. 

"The  book  indicates  sympathy  and  the  spirit  of  good  fellowship  on 
the  part  of  the  author.  From  first  to  last  he  takes  the  readers  into  the 
closest  of  comradeship  and  gives  the  benefit  of  his  keen  observation,  his 
extensive  study,  and  his  broad  outlook  on  life.  For  summer  or  for  winter 
reading  '  A  Search  for  an  Infidel '  will  prove  as  profitable  as  it  is  enter- 
taining." —  Chicago  Chronicle. 

"We  recommend  it  heartily.  There  is  a  healthy  optimism  which  is 
invigorating."  —  Boston  Advertiser. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


THE  GARDEN  OF  A  COMMUTERS  WIFE 

RECORDED  BY  THE  GARDENER 
With   Eight  Photogravure   Illustrations 

Cloth.    i2mo.    $1.50 


" '  The  Garden  of  a  Commuter's  Wife '  is  a  legend  that  gives  no  hint 
of  the  wit  and  wisdom  and  graceful  phrase  within  its  covers.  The  Com- 
muter's charming  woman  writes  of  her  suburban  garden,  her  original  ser- 
vants, and  various  other  incidents  which  come  in  the  course  of  living  in  a 
thoroughly  human  way.  She  reminds  one  of  Elizabeth  of  '  German  Gar- 
den '  fame  in  more  ways  than  one,  but  being  American  she  is  broader, 
more  versatile  and  humorous,  if  not  also  more  poetic.  It  breathes  an  air 
of  cheery  companionship,  of  flowers,  birds,  all  nature,  and  the  warm 
affection  of  human  friendship.  Its  philosophy  is  wholesome,  unselfish, 
and  kindly,  and  the  Commuter's  Wife,  who  writes  her  own  memoirs,  is 
one  we  would  be  glad  to  number  among  our  friends."  —  Chicago  Post. 

"  By  the  inevitable  action  and  reaction  so  interesting  to  watch,  these 
books  will  undoubtedly  in  their  term  stimulate  many  a  woman  who  pos- 
sesses a  small  plot  of  ground,  the  charms  and  possibilities  of  which  she 
now  only  meagrely  appreciates,  to  '  go  and  do  likewise.'  Which  will  be 
an  excellent  thing  for  the  woman  herself,  as  well  as  for  the  professional 
gardeners  whom  our  new  schools  will  raise  up  to  pull  their  dilettante 
sisters  out  of  bogs."  —  Boston  Budget. 

"  In  brief,  the  book  is  delightfully  sketchy  and  chatty,  thoroughly 
feminine  and  entrancing.  The  writer  represents  herself  as  a  doctor's 
daughter  in  a  country  town,  who  has  married  an  Englishman,  and  after 
two  years  abroad  has  come  home  to  live.  Both  husband  and  wife  prefer 
the  country  to  the  city,  and  they  make  of  their  modes*  estate  a  mundane 
paradise  of  which  it  is  a  privilege  to  have  a  glimpse.  Surely  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  characterize  this  as  one  of  the  very  best  books  of  the 
holiday  season  thus  far."  —  Providence  Journal. 

"  It  is  written  with  charm  and  is  more  than  a  mere  treatise  on  what 
may  be  raised  in  the  small  lot  of  the  suburban  resident. 

"  The  author  has  not  only  learned  to  appreciate  nature  from  intimate 
association,  but  has  achieved  unusual  power  of  communicating  these  facts 
to  others.  There  is  something  unusually  attractive  about  the  book." 

—  The  Philadelphia  Inquirer. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 


University  of  California  Library 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  en  the  last  date  stamped  below; 


— ^ 


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